10-Round Feistel is Indifferentiable from an Ideal Cipher

We revisit the question of constructing an ideal cipher from a random oracle. Coron et al.~(Journal of Cryptology, 2014) proved that a 14-round Feistel network using random, independent, keyed round functions is indifferentiable from an ideal cipher, thus demonstrating the feasibility of such a construction. Left unresolved is the best possible efficiency of the transformation. We improve upon the result of Coron et al.\ and show that 10 rounds suffice

Reversible Proofs of Sequential Work

Proofs of sequential work (PoSW) are proof systems where a prover, upon receiving a statement $\chi$ and a time parameter $T$ computes a proof $\phi(\chi,T)$ which is efficiently and publicly verifiable. The proof can be computed in $T$ sequential steps, but not much less, even by a malicious party having large parallelism. A PoSW thus serves as a proof that $T$ units of time have passed since $\chi$ was received. PoSW were introduced by Mahmoody, Moran and Vadhan [MMV11], a simple and practical construction was only recently proposed by Cohen and Pietrzak [CP18]. In this work we construct a new simple PoSW in the random permutation model which is almost as simple and efficient as [CP18] but conceptually very different. Whereas the structure underlying [CP18] is a hash tree, our construction is based on skip lists and has the interesting property that computing the PoSW is a reversible computation. The fact that the construction is reversible can potentially be used for new applications like constructing \emph{proofs of replication}. We also show how to ``embed the sloth function of Lenstra and Weselowski [LW17] into our PoSW to get a PoSW where one additionally can verify correctness of the output much more efficiently than recomputing it (though recent constructions of ``verifiable delay functions subsume most of the applications this construction was aiming at)

Reversible Proofs of Sequential Work

Proofs of sequential work (PoSW) are proof systems where a prover, upon receiving a statement $\chi$ and a time parameter $T$ computes a proof $\phi(\chi,T)$ which is efficiently and publicly verifiable. The proof can be computed in $T$ sequential steps, but not much less, even by a malicious party having large parallelism. A PoSW thus serves as a proof that $T$ units of time have passed since $\chi$ was received. PoSW were introduced by Mahmoody, Moran and Vadhan [MMV11], a simple and practical construction was only recently proposed by Cohen and Pietrzak [CP18]. In this work we construct a new simple PoSW in the random permutation model which is almost as simple and efficient as [CP18] but conceptually very different. Whereas the structure underlying [CP18] is a hash tree, our construction is based on skip lists and has the interesting property that computing the PoSW is a reversible computation. The fact that the construction is reversible can potentially be used for new applications like constructing \emph{proofs of replication}. We also show how to ``embed the sloth function of Lenstra and Weselowski [LW17] into our PoSW to get a PoSW where one additionally can verify correctness of the output much more efficiently than recomputing it (though recent constructions of ``verifiable delay functions subsume most of the applications this construction was aiming at)

Reversible Proofs of Sequential Work

Proofs of sequential work (PoSW) are proof systems where a prover, upon receiving a statement $\chi$ and a time parameter $T$ computes a proof $\phi(\chi,T)$ which is efficiently and publicly verifiable. The proof can be computed in $T$ sequential steps, but not much less, even by a malicious party having large parallelism. A PoSW thus serves as a proof that $T$ units of time have passed since $\chi$ was received. PoSW were introduced by Mahmoody, Moran and Vadhan [MMV11], a simple and practical construction was only recently proposed by Cohen and Pietrzak [CP18]. In this work we construct a new simple PoSW in the random permutation model which is almost as simple and efficient as [CP18] but conceptually very different. Whereas the structure underlying [CP18] is a hash tree, our construction is based on skip lists and has the interesting property that computing the PoSW is a reversible computation. The fact that the construction is reversible can potentially be used for new applications like constructing \emph{proofs of replication}. We also show how to ``embed the sloth function of Lenstra and Weselowski [LW17] into our PoSW to get a PoSW where one additionally can verify correctness of the output much more efficiently than recomputing it (though recent constructions of ``verifiable delay functions subsume most of the applications this construction was aiming at)

A unified framework for trapdoor-permutation-based sequential aggregate signatures

We give a framework for trapdoor-permutation-based sequential aggregate signatures (SAS) that unifies and simplifies prior work and leads to new results. The framework is based on ideal ciphers over large domains, which have recently been shown to be realizable in the random oracle model. The basic idea is to replace the random oracle in the full-domain-hash signature scheme with an ideal cipher. Each signer in sequence applies the ideal cipher, keyed by the message, to the output of the previous signer, and then inverts the trapdoor permutation on the result. We obtain different variants of the scheme by varying additional keying material in the ideal cipher and making different assumptions on the trapdoor permutation. In particular, we obtain the first scheme with lazy verification and signature size independent of the number of signers that does not rely on bilinear pairings. Since existing proofs that ideal ciphers over large domains can be realized in the random oracle model are lossy, our schemes do not currently permit practical instantiation parameters at a reasonable security level, and thus we view our contribution as mainly conceptual. However, we are optimistic tighter proofs will be found, at least in our specific application.https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/070.pdfAccepted manuscrip

Machine-checked proofs for cryptographic standards indifferentiability of SPONGE and secure high-assurance implementations of SHA-3

We present a high-assurance and high-speed implementation of the SHA-3 hash function. Our implementation is written in the Jasmin programming language, and is formally verified for functional correctness, provable security and timing attack resistance in the EasyCrypt proof assistant. Our implementation is the first to achieve simultaneously the four desirable properties (efficiency, correctness, provable security, and side-channel protection) for a non-trivial cryptographic primitive.Concretely, our mechanized proofs show that: 1) the SHA-3 hash function is indifferentiable from a random oracle, and thus is resistant against collision, first and second preimage attacks; 2) the SHA-3 hash function is correctly implemented by a vectorized x86 implementation. Furthermore, the implementation is provably protected against timing attacks in an idealized model of timing leaks. The proofs include new EasyCrypt libraries of independent interest for programmable random oracles and modular indifferentiability proofs.This work received support from the National Institute of Standards and Technologies under agreement number 60NANB15D248.This work was partially supported by Office of Naval Research under projects N00014-12-1-0914, N00014-15-1-2750 and N00014-19-1-2292.This work was partially funded by national funds via the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the context of project PTDC/CCI-INF/31698/2017. Manuel Barbosa was supported by grant SFRH/BSAB/143018/2018 awarded by the FCT.This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant number 1801564.This work was supported in part by the FutureTPM project of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union, under GA number 779391.This work was supported by the ANR Scrypt project, grant number ANR-18-CE25-0014.This work was supported by the ANR TECAP project, grant number ANR-17-CE39-0004-01

IST Austria Thesis

A proof system is a protocol between a prover and a verifier over a common input in which an honest prover convinces the verifier of the validity of true statements. Motivated by the success of decentralized cryptocurrencies, exemplified by Bitcoin, the focus of this thesis will be on proof systems which found applications in some sustainable alternatives to Bitcoin, such as the Spacemint and Chia cryptocurrencies. In particular, we focus on proofs of space and proofs of sequential work. Proofs of space (PoSpace) were suggested as more ecological, economical, and egalitarian alternative to the energy-wasteful proof-of-work mining of Bitcoin. However, the state-of-the-art constructions of PoSpace are based on sophisticated graph pebbling lower bounds, and are therefore complex. Moreover, when these PoSpace are used in cryptocurrencies like Spacemint, miners can only start mining after ensuring that a commitment to their space is already added in a special transaction to the blockchain. Proofs of sequential work (PoSW) are proof systems in which a prover, upon receiving a statement x and a time parameter T, computes a proof which convinces the verifier that T time units had passed since x was received. Whereas Spacemint assumes synchrony to retain some interesting Bitcoin dynamics, Chia requires PoSW with unique proofs, i.e., PoSW in which it is hard to come up with more than one accepting proof for any true statement. In this thesis we construct simple and practically-efficient PoSpace and PoSW. When using our PoSpace in cryptocurrencies, miners can start mining on the fly, like in Bitcoin, and unlike current constructions of PoSW, which either achieve efficient verification of sequential work, or faster-than-recomputing verification of correctness of proofs, but not both at the same time, ours achieve the best of these two worlds

IMPROVING THE ROUND COMPLEXITY OF IDEAL-CIPHER CONSTRUCTIONS

Block ciphers are an essential ingredient of modern cryptography. They are widely used as building blocks in many cryptographic constructions such as encryption schemes, hash functions etc. The security of block ciphers is not currently known to reduce to well-studied, easily formulated, computational problems. Nevertheless, modern block-cipher constructions are far from ad-hoc, and a strong theory for their design has been developed. Two classical paradigms for block cipher design are the Feistel network and the key-alternating cipher (which is encompassed by the popular substitution-permutation network). Both of these paradigms that are iterated structures that involve applications of random-looking functions/permutations over many rounds. An important area of research is to understand the provable security guarantees offered by these classical design paradigms for block cipher constructions. This can be done using a security notion called indifferentiability which formalizes what it means for a block cipher to be ideal. In particular, this notion allows us to assert the structural robustness of a block cipher design. In this thesis, we apply the indifferentiability notion to the two classical paradigms mentioned above and improve upon the previously known round complexity in both cases. Specifically, we make the following two contributions: (1) We show that a 10-round Feistel network behaves as an ideal block cipher when the keyed round functions are built using a random oracle. (2) We show that a 5-round key-alternating cipher (also known as the iterated Even-Mansour construction) with identical round keys behaves as an ideal block cipher when the round permutations are independent, public random permutations

Revisiting Cascade Ciphers in Indifferentiability Setting

Shannon defined an ideal $(\kappa,n)$-blockcipher as a secrecy system consisting of $2^{\kappa}$ independent $n$-bit random permutations. In this paper, we revisit the following question: in the ideal cipher model, can a cascade of several ideal $(\kappa,n)$-blockciphers realize an ideal $(2\kappa,n)$-blockcipher? The motivation goes back to Shannon\u27s theory on product secrecy systems, and similar question was considered by Even and Goldreich (CRYPTO \u2783) in different settings. We give the first positive answer: for the cascade of independent ideal $(\kappa,n)$-blockciphers with two alternated independent keys, four stages are necessary and sufficient to realize an ideal $(2\kappa,n)$-blockcipher, in the sense of indifferentiability of Maurer et al. (TCC 2004). This shows cascade capable of achieving key-length extension in the settings where keys are \emph{not necessarily secret}