New Notions of Security: Achieving Universal Composability without Trusted Setup

We propose a modification to the framework of Universally Composable (UC) security [3]. Our new notion, involves comparing the protocol executions with an ideal execution involving ideal functionalities (just as in UC-security), but allowing the environment and adversary access to some super-polynomial computational power. We argue the meaningfulness of the new notion, which in particular subsumes many of the traditional notions of security. We generalize the Universal Composition theorem of [3] to the new setting. Then under new computational assumptions, we realize secure multi-party computation (for static adversaries) without a common reference string or any other set-up assumptions, in the new framework. This is known to be impossible under the UC framework.

The Exact Round Complexity of Secure Computation

We revisit the exact round complexity of secure computation in the multi-party and two-party settings. For the special case of two-parties without a simultaneous message exchange channel, this question has been extensively studied and resolved. In particular, Katz and Ostrovsky (CRYPTO \u2704) proved that 5 rounds are necessary and sufficient for securely realizing every two-party functionality where both parties receive the output. However, the exact round complexity of general multi-party computation, as well as two-party computation with a simultaneous message exchange channel, is not very well understood. These questions are intimately connected to the round complexity of non-malleable commitments. Indeed, the exact relationship between the round complexities of non-malleable commitments and secure multi-party computation has also not been explored. In this work, we revisit these questions and obtain several new results. First, we establish the following main results. Suppose that there exists a k-round non-malleable commitment scheme, and let k\u27 = max(4, k + 1); then, – (Two-party setting with simultaneous message transmission): there exists a k\u27-round protocol for securely realizing every two-party functionality; – (Multi-party setting):there exists a k\u27-round protocol for securely realizing the multi-party coin-flipping functionality. As a corollary of the above results, by instantiating them with existing non-malleable commitment protocols (from the literature), we establish that four rounds are both necessary and sufficient for both the results above. Furthermore, we establish that, for every multi-party functionality five rounds are sufficient. We actually obtain a variety of results offering trade-offs between rounds and the cryptographic assumptions used, depending upon the particular instantiations of underlying protocols

Fiat–Shamir Transformation of Multi-Round Interactive Proofs (Extended Version)

The celebrated Fiat–Shamir transformation turns any public-coin interactive proof into a non-interactive one, which inherits the main security properties (in the random oracle model) of the interactive version. While originally considered in the context of 3-move public-coin interactive proofs, i.e., so-called Σ-protocols, it is now applied to multi-round protocols as well. Unfortunately, the security loss for a (2μ+1)-move protocol is, in general, approximately Q$^μ$, where Q is the number of oracle queries performed by the attacker. In general, this is the best one can hope for, as it is easy to see that this loss applies to the μ-fold sequential repetition of Σ-protocols, but it raises the question whether certain (natural) classes of interactive proofs feature a milder security loss. In this work, we give positive and negative results on this question. On the positive side, we show that for (k$_1$,…,k$_μ$)-special-sound protocols (which cover a broad class of use cases), the knowledge error degrades linearly in Q, instead of Q$^μ$. On the negative side, we show that for t-fold parallel repetitions of typical (k$_1$,…,k$_μ$)-special-sound protocols with t≥μ (and assuming for simplicity that t and Q are integer multiples of μ), there is an attack that results in a security loss of approximately $\frac{1}{2}$Q$^μ$/μ$^{μ+t}$

On the Impossibility of Post-Quantum Black-Box Zero-Knowledge in Constant Rounds

We investigate the existence of constant-round post-quantum black-box zero-knowledge protocols for $\mathbf{NP}$. As a main result, we show that there is no constant-round post-quantum black-box zero-knowledge argument for $\mathbf{NP}$ unless $\mathbf{NP}\subseteq \mathbf{BQP}$. As constant-round black-box zero-knowledge arguments for $\mathbf{NP}$ exist in the classical setting, our main result points out a fundamental difference between post-quantum and classical zero-knowledge protocols. Combining previous results, we conclude that unless $\mathbf{NP}\subseteq \mathbf{BQP}$, constant-round post-quantum zero-knowledge protocols for $\mathbf{NP}$ exist if and only if we use non-black-box techniques or relax certain security requirements such as relaxing standard zero-knowledge to $\epsilon$-zero-knowledge. Additionally, we also prove that three-round and public-coin constant-round post-quantum black-box $\epsilon$-zero-knowledge arguments for $\mathbf{NP}$ do not exist unless $\mathbf{NP}\subseteq \mathbf{BQP}$.Comment: 46 page

On the Implausibility of Constant-Round Public-Coin Zero-Knowledge Proofs

We consider the problem of whether there exist non-trivial constant-round public-coin zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. To date, in spite of high interest in the above, there is no definite answer to the question. We focus on the type of ZK proofs that admit a universal simulator (which handles all malicious verifiers), and show a connection between the existence of such proof systems and a seemingly unrelated “program understanding” problem: for a natural class of constant-round public-coin ZK proofs (which we call “canonical,” since all known ZK protocols fall into this category), a session prefix output by the universal simulator can actually be used to distinguish a non-trivial property of the next-step functionality of the verifier’s code. Our result can be viewed as extended new evidence against the existence of constant-round public-coin ZK proofs, since the existence of such a proof system will bring about either one of the following: (1) a positive result for the above program-understanding problem, a typical goal in reverse-engineering attempts, commonly believed to be notoriously hard, or (2) a rather unfathomable simulation strategy beyond the only known (straight-line simulation) technique for their argument counterpart, as we also argue. Earlier negative evidence on constant-round public-coin ZK proofs is Barack, Lindell and Vadhan [FOCS ’03]’s result, which was based on the incomparable assumption of the existence of certain entropy-preserving hash functions, now (due to further work) known not to be achievable from standard assumptions via black-box reduction. The core of our technical contribution is showing that there exists a single verifier step for constant-round public-coin ZK proofs whose functionality (rather than its code) is crucial for a successful simulation. This is proved by combining a careful analysis of the behavior of a set of verifiers in the above protocols and during simulation, with an improved structure-preserving version of the well-known Babai-Moran Speedup (de-randomization) Theorem, a key tool of independent interest

Fiat-Shamir transformation of multi-round interactive proofs

The celebrated Fiat-Shamir transformation turns any public-coin interactive proof into a non-interactive one, which inherits the main security properties (in the random oracle model) of the interactive version. While originally considered in the context of 3-move public-coin interactive proofs, i.e., so-called Σ-protocols, it is now applied to multi-round protocols as well. Unfortunately, the security loss for a (2μ+1)-move protocol is, in general, approximately Qμ, where Q is the number of oracle queries performed by the attacker. In general, this is the best one can hope for, as it is easy to see that this loss applies to the μ-fold sequential repetition of Σ -protocols, but it raises the question whether certain (natural) classes of interactive proofs feature a milder security loss. In this work, we give positive and negative results on this question. On the positive side, we show that for (k1,…,kμ) -special-sound protocols (which cover a broad class of use cases), the knowledge error degrades linearly in Q, instead of Qμ. On the negative side, we show that for t-fold parallel repetitions of typical (k1,…,kμ)-special-sound protocols with t≥μ (and assuming for simplicity that t and Q are integer multiples of μ), there is an attack that results in a security loss of approximately 12Qμ/μμ+t

Founding Cryptography on Smooth Projective Hashing

Oblivious transfer (OT) is a fundamental primitive in cryptography. Halevi-Kalai OT (Halevi, S. and Y. Kalai (2012), Journal of Cryptology 25(1)), which is based on smooth projective hash(SPH), is a famous and the most efficient framework for $1$-out-of-$2$ oblivious transfer (\mbox{OT}^{2}_{1}) against malicious adversaries in plain model. However, it does not provide simulation-based security. Thus, it is harder to use it as a building block in secure multiparty computation (SMPC) protocols. A natural question however, which so far has not been answered, is whether it can be can be made fully-simulatable. In this paper, we give a positive answer. Further, we present a fully-simulatable framework for general \mbox{OT}^{n}_{t} ($n,t\in \mathbb{N}$ and $n>t$). Our framework can be interpreted as a constant-round blackbox reduction of \mbox{OT}^{n}_{t} (or \mbox{OT}^{2}_{1}) to SPH. To our knowledge, this is the first such reduction. Combining Kilian\u27s famous completeness result, we immediately obtain a black-box reduction of SMPC to SPH

Public-Key Encryption from Average Hard NP Language

The question of whether public-key encryption (PKE) can be constructed from the assumption that one-way functions (OWF) exist remains a central open problem. In this paper we give two constructions of bit PKE scheme derived from any NP language L, along with a polynomial-time instance-witness sampling algorithm. Furthermore, we prove that if L is average hard NP language, the the presented schemes is CPA secure. Our results give a positive answer to this longstanding problem, as the existence of OWF implies the existence of average hard NP language with a polynomial-time instance-witness sampling algorithm. Additionally, we obtain a witness encryption (WE) scheme for NP language based on the presented PKE scheme. This result highlights that WE scheme can also be established based on the existence of OWF

Non-black-box Techniques Are Not Necessary for Constant Round Non-malleable Protocols

Recently, non-black-box techniques have enjoyed great success in cryptography. In particular, they have led to the construction of \emph{constant round} protocols for two basic cryptographic tasks (in the plain model): non-malleable zero-knowledge (NMZK) arguments for NP, and non-malleable commitments. Earlier protocols, whose security proofs relied only on black-box techniques, required non-constant (e.g., $O(\log n)$) number of rounds. Given the inefficiency (and complexity) of existing non-black-box techniques, it is natural to ask whether they are \emph{necessary} for achieving constant-round non-malleable cryptographic protocols. In this paper, we answer this question in the \emph{negative}. Assuming the validity of a recently introduced assumption, namely the \emph{Gap Discrete Logarithm} (Gap-DL) assumption [MMY06], we construct a constant round \emph{simulation-extractable} argument system for NP, which implies NMZK. The Gap-DL assumption also leads to a very simple and natural construction of \emph{non-interactive non-malleable commitments}. In addition, plugging our simulation-extractable argument in the construction of Katz, Ostrovsky, and Smith [KOS03] yields the first $O(1)$-round secure multiparty computation with a dishonest majority using only black-box techniques. Although the Gap-DL assumption is relatively new and non-standard, in addition to answering some long standing open questions, it brings a new approach to non-malleability which is simpler and very natural. We also demonstrate that \odla~holds unconditionally against \emph{generic} adversaries