Paper 2017/486

Collision Resistant Hashing for Paranoids: Dealing with Multiple Collisions

Ilan Komargodski, Moni Naor, and Eylon Yogev

Abstract

A collision resistant hash (CRH) function is one that compresses its input, yet it is hard to find a collision, i.e. a $x_1 \neq x_2$ s.t. $h(x_1) = h(x_2)$. Collision resistant hash functions are one of the more useful cryptographic primitives both in theory and in practice and two prominent applications are in signature schemes and succinct zero-knowledge arguments. In this work we consider a relaxation of the above requirement that we call Multi-CRH: a function where it is hard to find $x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_k$ which are all distinct, yet $ h(x_1) = h(x_2) = \cdots = h(x_k)$. We show that for some of the major applications of CRH functions it is possible to replace them by the weaker notion of an Multi-CRH, albeit at the price of adding interaction: we show a statistically hiding commitment schemes with succinct interaction (committing to $\mathsf{poly}(n)$ bits requires exchanging $O(n)$ bits) that can be opened locally (without revealing the full string). This in turn can be used to provide succinct arguments for any statement. On the other hand we show black-box separation results from standard CRH and a hierarchy of such Multi-CRHs.