IACR Communications in Cryptology
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283 research outputs found
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Optimizing and Implementing Fischlin\u27s Transform for UC-Secure Zero Knowledge
Fischlin\u27s transform (CRYPTO 2005) is an alternative to the Fiat-Shamir transform that enables straight-line extraction when proving knowledge. In this work we focus on the problem of using the Fischlin transform to construct UC-secure zero-knowledge from Sigma protocols, since UC security – that guarantees security under general concurrent composition – requires straight-line (non-rewinding) simulators. We provide a slightly simplified transform that is much easier to understand, and present algorithmic and implementation optimizations that significantly improve the running time. It appears that the main obstacles to the use of Fischlin in practice is its computational cost and implementation complexity (with multiple parameters that need to be chosen). We provide clear guidelines and a simple methodology for choosing parameters, and show that with our optimizations the running-time is far lower than expected. For just one example, on a 2023 MacBook, the cost of proving the knowledge of discrete log with Fischlin is only 0.41ms (on a single core). This is 15 times slower than plain Fiat-Shamir on the same machine, which is a significant multiple but objectively not significant in many applications. We also extend the transform so that it can be applied to batch proofs, and show how this can be much more efficient than individually proving each statement. We hope that this paper will both encourage and help practitioners implement the Fischlin transform where relevant. </p
Communication-Efficient Multi-Party Computation for RMS Programs
Despite much progress, general-purpose secure multi-party computation (MPC) with active security may still be prohibitively expensive in settings with large input datasets. This particularly applies to the secure evaluation of graph algorithms, where each party holds a subset of a large graph. Recently, Araki et al. (ACM CCS \u2721) showed that dedicated solutions may provide significantly better efficiency if the input graph is sparse. In particular, they provide an efficient protocol for the secure evaluation of “message passing” algorithms, such as the PageRank algorithm. Their protocol\u27s computation and communication complexity are both instead of the complexity achieved by general-purpose MPC protocols, where denotes the number of nodes and the (average) number of incoming edges per node. On the downside, their approach achieves only a relatively weak security notion; -out-of- malicious security with selective abort. In this work, we show that PageRank can instead be captured efficiently as a restricted multiplication straight-line (RMS) program, and present a new actively secure MPC protocol tailored to handle RMS programs. In particular, we show that the local knowledge of the participants can be leveraged towards the first maliciously-secure protocol with communication complexity linear in , independently of the sparsity of the graph. We present two variants of our protocol. In our communication-optimized protocol, going from semi-honest to malicious security only introduces a small communication overhead, but results in quadratic computation complexity . In our balanced protocol, we still achieve a linear communication complexity , although with worse constants, but a significantly better computational complexity scaling with . Additionally, our protocols achieve security with identifiable abort and can tolerate up to corruptions. </p
A Survey of Two Verifiable Delay Functions Using Proof of Exponentiation
A verifiable delay function (VDF) is an important tool used for adding delay in decentralized applications. This paper surveys and compares two beautiful verifiable delay functions, one due to Pietrzak, and the other due to Wesolowski, In addition, we provide a new computational proof of security for one of them, present an attack on an incorrect implementation of the other, and compare the complexity assumptions needed for both schemes. </p
Impossibility of Post-Quantum Shielding Black-Box Constructions of CCA from CPA
Proving whether it is possible to build IND-CCA public-key encryption (PKE) from IND-CPA PKE in a black-box manner is a major open problem in theoretical cryptography. In a significant breakthrough, Gertner, Malkin and Myers showed in 2007 that shielding black-box reductions from IND-CCA to IND-CPA do not exist in the standard model. Shielding means that the decryption algorithm of the IND-CCA scheme does not call the encryption algorithm of the underlying IND-CPA scheme. In other words, it implies that every tentative construction of IND-CCA from IND-CPA must have a re-encryption step when decrypting. This result was only proven with respect to classical algorithms. In this work we show that it stands in a post-quantum setting. That is, we prove that there is no post-quantum shielding black-box construction of IND-CCA PKE from IND-CPA PKE. In the type of reductions we consider, i.e. post-quantum ones, the constructions are still classical in the sense that the schemes must be computable on classical computers, but the adversaries and the reduction algorithm can be quantum. This suggests that considering quantum notions, which are stronger than their classical counterparts, and allowing for quantum reductions does not make building IND-CCA public-key encryption easier. </p
Towards Practical Transciphering for FHE with Setup Independent of the Plaintext Space
Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) is a powerful tool to achieve non-interactive privacy preserving protocols with optimal computation/communication complexity. However, the main disadvantage is that the actual communication cost (bandwidth) is high due to the large size of FHE ciphertexts. As a solution, a technique called transciphering (also known as Hybrid Homomorphic Encryption) was introduced to achieve almost optimal bandwidth for such protocols. However, all existing works require clients to fix a precision for the messages or a mathematical structure for the message space beforehand. It results in unwanted constraints on the plaintext size or underlying structure of FHE based applications. In this article, we introduce a new approach for transciphering which does not require fixed message precision decided by the client, for the first time. In more detail, a client uses any kind of FHE-friendly symmetric cipher for to send its input data encrypted bit-by-bit, then the server can choose a precision depending on the application and homomorphically transforms the encrypted bits into FHE ciphertexts encrypting integers in . To illustrate our new technique, we evaluate a transciphering using FiLIP cipher and adapt the most practical homomorphic evaluation technique [CCS\u2722] to keep the practical latency. As a result, our proof-of-concept implementation for from to takes only from ms to ms. </p
On the Privacy of Sublinear-Communication Jaccard Index Estimation via Min-hash
The min-hash sketch is a well-known technique for low-communication approximation of the Jaccard index between two input sets. Moreover, there is a folklore belief that min-hash sketch-based protocols protect the privacy of the inputs. In this paper, we consider variants of private min-hash sketch based-protocols and investigate this folklore to quantify the privacy of the min-hash sketch. We begin our investigation by presenting a highly-efficient two-party protocol for estimating the Jaccard index while ensuring differential privacy. This protocol adds Laplacian noise to the min-hash sketch counts to provide privacy protection. Then, we aim to understand what privacy, if any, is guaranteed if the results of the min-hash are released without any additional noise, such as in the case of historical data. We begin our investigation by considering the privacy of min-hash in a centralized setting where the hash functions are chosen by the min-hash functionality and are unknown to the participants. We show that in this case the min-hash output satisfies the standard definition of differential privacy (DP) without any additional noise. We next consider a more practical distributed setting, where the hash function must be shared among all parties and is typically public. Unfortunately, we show that in this public hash function setting, the min-hash output is no longer DP. We therefore consider the notion of distributional differential privacy (DDP) introduced by Bassily et al. (FOCS 2013). We show that if the honest party\u27s set has sufficiently high min-entropy, the min-hash output achieves DDP without requiring noise. Our findings provide guidance on how to use the min-hash sketch for private Jaccard index estimation and clarify the extent to which min-hash protocols protect input privacy, refining the common belief in their privacy guarantees. </p
MAYO Key Recovery by Fixing Vinegar Seeds
As the industry prepares for the transition to post-quantum secure public key cryptographic algorithms, vulnerability analysis of their implementations is gaining importance. A theoretically secure cryptographic algorithm should also be able to withstand the challenges of physical attacks in real-world environments. MAYO is a candidate in the ongoing second round of the NIST post-quantum standardization process for selecting additional digital signature schemes. This paper demonstrates three first-order single-execution fault injection attacks on the official MAYO implementation on the ARM Cortex-M4. By using voltage glitching to disrupt the computation of the vinegar seed during the signature generation, we enable the recovery of the secret key directly from the faulty signatures. Our experimental results show that the success rates of the fault attacks in a single execution are 36%, 82%, and 99%, respectively. They emphasize the importance of developing countermeasures against fault attacks prior to the widespread deployment of post-quantum algorithms like MAYO. </p
Foundations of Data Availability Sampling
Towards building more scalable blockchains, an approach known as data availability sampling (DAS) has emerged over the past few years. Even large blockchains like Ethereum are planning to eventually deploy DAS to improve their scalability. In a nutshell, DAS allows the participants of a network to ensure the full availability of some data without any one participant downloading it entirely. Despite the significant practical interest that DAS has received, there are currently no formal definitions for this primitive, no security notions, and no security proofs for any candidate constructions. For a cryptographic primitive that may end up being widely deployed in large real-world systems, this is a rather unsatisfactory state of affairs.In this work, we initiate a cryptographic study of data availability sampling. To this end, we define data availability sampling precisely as a clean cryptographic primitive. Then, we show how data availability sampling relates to erasure codes. We do so by defining a new type of commitment schemes which naturally generalizes vector commitments and polynomial commitments. Using our framework, we analyze existing constructions and prove them secure. In addition, we give new constructions which are based on weaker assumptions, computationally more efficient, and do not rely on a trusted setup, at the cost of slightly larger communication complexity. Finally, we evaluate the trade-offs of the different constructions. </p
Haven++: Batched and Packed Dual-Threshold Asynchronous Complete Secret Sharing with Applications
Asynchronous complete secret sharing (ACSS) is a foundational primitive in the design of distributed algorithms and cryptosystems that require confidentiality. ACSS permits a dealer to distribute a secret to a collection of N servers so that everyone holds shares of a polynomial containing the dealer\u27s secret.This work contributes a new ACSS protocol, called Haven++, that uses packing and batching to make asymptotic and concrete advances in the design and application of ACSS for large secrets. Haven++ allows the dealer to pack multiple secrets in a single sharing phase, and to reconstruct either one or all of them later. For even larger secrets, we contribute a batching technique to amortize the cost of proof generation and verification across multiple invocations of our protocol.The result is an asymptotic improvement in the worst-case amortized communication and computation complexity, both for ACSS itself and for its application to asynchronous distributed key generation. Our ADKG based on Haven++ achieves, for the first time, an optimal worst case amortized communication complexity of κN without a trusted setup. To show the practicality of Haven++, we implement it and find that it outperforms the work of Yurek et al. (NDSS 2022) by more than an order of magnitude when there are malicious, faulty parties. </p
Building a BBB Pseudorandom Permutation using Lai-Massey Networks
In spite of being a popular technique for designing block ciphers, Lai-Massey networks have received considerably less attention from a security analysis point of view than Feistel networks and Substitution-Permutation networks. In this paper we study the beyond-birthday-bound (BBB) security of Lai-Massey networks with independent random round functions against chosen-plaintext adversaries. Concretely, we show that five rounds are necessary and sufficient to achieve BBB security. </p