2,633 research outputs found
The Random Oracle Methodology, Revisited
We take a critical look at the relationship between the security of
cryptographic schemes in the Random Oracle Model, and the security of the
schemes that result from implementing the random oracle by so called
"cryptographic hash functions". The main result of this paper is a negative
one: There exist signature and encryption schemes that are secure in the Random
Oracle Model, but for which any implementation of the random oracle results in
insecure schemes.
In the process of devising the above schemes, we consider possible
definitions for the notion of a "good implementation" of a random oracle,
pointing out limitations and challenges.Comment: 31 page
Concurrently Non-Malleable Zero Knowledge in the Authenticated Public-Key Model
We consider a type of zero-knowledge protocols that are of interest for their
practical applications within networks like the Internet: efficient
zero-knowledge arguments of knowledge that remain secure against concurrent
man-in-the-middle attacks. In an effort to reduce the setup assumptions
required for efficient zero-knowledge arguments of knowledge that remain secure
against concurrent man-in-the-middle attacks, we consider a model, which we
call the Authenticated Public-Key (APK) model. The APK model seems to
significantly reduce the setup assumptions made by the CRS model (as no trusted
party or honest execution of a centralized algorithm are required), and can be
seen as a slightly stronger variation of the Bare Public-Key (BPK) model from
\cite{CGGM,MR}, and a weaker variation of the registered public-key model used
in \cite{BCNP}. We then define and study man-in-the-middle attacks in the APK
model. Our main result is a constant-round concurrent non-malleable
zero-knowledge argument of knowledge for any polynomial-time relation
(associated to a language in ), under the (minimal) assumption of
the existence of a one-way function family. Furthermore,We show time-efficient
instantiations of our protocol based on known number-theoretic assumptions. We
also note a negative result with respect to further reducing the setup
assumptions of our protocol to those in the (unauthenticated) BPK model, by
showing that concurrently non-malleable zero-knowledge arguments of knowledge
in the BPK model are only possible for trivial languages
The random oracle methodology, revisited
We take a critical look at the relationship between the security of cryptographic schemes in the Random Oracle Model, and the security of the schemes that result from implementing the random oracle by so called “cryptographic hash functions”. The main result of this paper is a negative one: There exist signature and encryption schemes that are secure in the Random Oracle Model, but for which any implementation of the random oracle results in insecure schemes. In the process of devising the above schemes, we consider possible definitions for the notion of a “good implementation” of a random oracle, pointing out limitations and challengesAccepted manuscrip
Snarky Signatures: Minimal Signatures of Knowledge from Simulation-Extractable SNARKs
We construct a pairing based simulation-extractable SNARK (SE-SNARK) that consists of only 3 group elements and has highly efficient verification. By formally linking SE-SNARKs to signatures of knowledge, we then obtain a succinct signature of knowledge consisting of only 3 group elements.
SE-SNARKs enable a prover to give a proof that they know a witness to an instance in a manner which is: (1) succinct - proofs are short and verifier computation is small; (2) zero-knowledge - proofs do not reveal the witness; (3) simulation-extractable - it is only possible to prove instances to which you know a witness, even when you have already seen a number of simulated proofs.
We also prove that any pairing based signature of knowledge or SE-NIZK argument must have at least 3 group elements and 2 verification equations. Since our constructions match these lower bounds, we have the smallest size signature of knowledge and the smallest size SE-SNARK possible
Average-Case Complexity
We survey the average-case complexity of problems in NP.
We discuss various notions of good-on-average algorithms, and present
completeness results due to Impagliazzo and Levin. Such completeness results
establish the fact that if a certain specific (but somewhat artificial) NP
problem is easy-on-average with respect to the uniform distribution, then all
problems in NP are easy-on-average with respect to all samplable distributions.
Applying the theory to natural distributional problems remain an outstanding
open question. We review some natural distributional problems whose
average-case complexity is of particular interest and that do not yet fit into
this theory.
A major open question whether the existence of hard-on-average problems in NP
can be based on the PNP assumption or on related worst-case assumptions.
We review negative results showing that certain proof techniques cannot prove
such a result. While the relation between worst-case and average-case
complexity for general NP problems remains open, there has been progress in
understanding the relation between different ``degrees'' of average-case
complexity. We discuss some of these ``hardness amplification'' results
Fiat-Shamir for highly sound protocols is instantiable
The Fiat–Shamir (FS) transformation (Fiat and Shamir, Crypto '86) is a popular paradigm for constructing very efficient non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) arguments and signature schemes from a hash function and any three-move interactive protocol satisfying certain properties. Despite its wide-spread applicability both in theory and in practice, the known positive results for proving security of the FS paradigm are in the random oracle model only, i.e., they assume that the hash function is modeled as an external random function accessible to all parties. On the other hand, a sequence of negative results shows that for certain classes of interactive protocols, the FS transform cannot be instantiated in the standard model.
We initiate the study of complementary positive results, namely, studying classes of interactive protocols where the FS transform does have standard-model instantiations. In particular, we show that for a class of “highly sound” protocols that we define, instantiating the FS transform via a q-wise independent hash function yields NIZK arguments and secure signature schemes. In the case of NIZK, we obtain a weaker “q-bounded” zero-knowledge flavor where the simulator works for all adversaries asking an a-priori bounded number of queries q; in the case of signatures, we obtain the weaker notion of random-message unforgeability against q-bounded random message attacks.
Our main idea is that when the protocol is highly sound, then instead of using random-oracle programming, one can use complexity leveraging. The question is whether such highly sound protocols exist and if so, which protocols lie in this class. We answer this question in the affirmative in the common reference string (CRS) model and under strong assumptions. Namely, assuming indistinguishability obfuscation and puncturable pseudorandom functions we construct a compiler that transforms any 3-move interactive protocol with instance-independent commitments and simulators (a property satisfied by the Lapidot–Shamir protocol, Crypto '90) into a compiled protocol in the CRS model that is highly sound. We also present a second compiler, in order to be able to start from a larger class of protocols, which only requires instance-independent commitments (a property for example satisfied by the classical protocol for quadratic residuosity due to Blum, Crypto '81). For the second compiler we require dual-mode commitments.
We hope that our work inspires more research on classes of (efficient) 3-move protocols where Fiat–Shamir is (efficiently) instantiable
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