Paper 2022/035
Time-Traveling Simulators Using Blockchains and Their Applications
Vipul Goyal and Justin Raizes and Pratik Soni
Abstract
Blockchain technology has the potential of transforming cryptography. We study the problem of round-complexity of zero-knowledge, and more broadly, of secure computation in the blockchain-hybrid model, where all parties can access the blockchain as an oracle. We study zero-knowledge and secure computation through the lens of a new security notion where the simulator is given the ability to ``time-travel” or more accurately, to look into the future states of the blockchain and use this information to perform simulation. Such a time-traveling simulator gives a novel security guarantee of the following form: whatever the adversary could have learnt from an interaction, it could have computed on its own shortly into the future (e.g., a few hours from now). We exhibit the power of time-traveling simulators by constructing round-efficient protocols in the blockchain-hybrid model. In particular, we construct: 1. Three-round zero-knowledge (ZK) argument for NP with a polynomial-time black-box time-traveling simulator. 2. Three-round secure two-party computation (2PC) for any functionality with a polynomial-time black-box time-traveling simulator for both parties. In addition to standard cryptographic assumptions, we rely on natural hardness assumptions for Proof-of-Work based blockchains. In comparison, in the plain model, three-round protocols with black-box simulation are impossible, and constructions with non-black-box simulation for ZK require novel cryptographic assumptions while no construction for three-round 2PC is known. Our three-round 2PC result relies on a new, two-round extractable commitment that admits a time-traveling extractor.
Note: A preliminary version of this paper appears at ITCS 2022.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
- Category
- Foundations
- Publication info
- Published elsewhere. Major revision. ITCS 2022
- Keywords
- Zero-knowledgeSecure two-party computationBlockchains
- Contact author(s)
- psoni @ andrew cmu edu,jraizes @ andrew cmu edu,vipul @ cmu edu
- History
- 2022-01-14: received
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2022/035
- License
-
CC BY