Improved Lattice-Based Mix-Nets for Electronic Voting

Valeh Farzaliyev; Jan Willemson; Jaan Kristjan Kaasik

Paper 2021/1499

Improved Lattice-Based Mix-Nets for Electronic Voting

Valeh Farzaliyev, Jan Willemson, and Jaan Kristjan Kaasik

Abstract

Mix-networks were first proposed by Chaum in the late 1970s -- early 1980s as a general tool for building anonymous communication systems. Classical mix-net implementations rely on standard public key primitives (e.g. ElGamal encryption) that will become vulnerable when a sufficiently powerful quantum computer will be built. Thus, there is a need to develop quantum-resistant mix-nets. This paper focuses on the application case of electronic voting where the number of votes to be mixed may reach hundreds of thousands or even millions. We propose an improved architecture for lattice-based post-quantum mix-nets featuring more efficient zero-knowledge proofs while maintaining established security assumptions. Our current implementation scales up to 100000 votes, still leaving a lot of room for future optimisation.

Note: This is an extended version of a paper to appear in ICISC 2021, with proof details added in the apepndices.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Public-key cryptography
Publication info: Published elsewhere. Minor revision. ICISC 2021
Keywords: Lattice-based post-quantum cryptography mix-nets zero-knowledge proofs electronic voting implementation
Contact author(s): janwil @ cyber ee
History: 2022-04-06: last of 2 revisions; 2021-11-15: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2021/1499
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2021/1499,
      author = {Valeh Farzaliyev and Jan Willemson and Jaan Kristjan Kaasik},
      title = {Improved Lattice-Based Mix-Nets for Electronic Voting},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2021/1499},
      year = {2021},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/1499}
}