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Lecture notes in computer science

Amortizing Garbled Circuits

Yan Huang, Jonathan I. Katz, Vladimir Kolesnikov, Ranjit Kumaresan, Alex J. Malozemoff

Published Aug 17, 2014• 2 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Abstract. We consider secure two-party computation in a multiple-execution setting, where two parties wish to securely evaluate the same circuit multiple times. We design efficient garbled-circuit-based two-party protocols secure against malicious adversaries. Recent works by Lindell (Crypto 2013) and Huang-Katz-Evans (Crypto 2013) have obtained op-timal complexity for cut-and-choose performed over garbled circuits in the single execution setting. We show that it is possible to obtain much lower amortized overhead for cut-and-choose in the multiple-execution setting. Our efficiency improvements result from a novel way to combine a recent technique of Lindell (Crypto 2013) with LEGO-based cut-and-choose techniques (TCC 2009, Eurocrypt 2013). In concrete terms, for 40-bit statistical security we obtain a 2 × improvement (per execution) in com-munication and computation for as few as 7 executions, and require only 8 garbled circuits (i.e., a 5 × improvement) per execution for as low as 3500 executions. Our results suggest the exciting possibility that secure two-party computation in the malicious setting can be less than an order of magnitude more expensive than in the semi-honest setting. 1

Related papers

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In the setting of secure two-party computation, two parties wish to securely compute a joint function of their private inputs, while revealing only the output. One of the primary techniques for achieving efficient secure two-party computation is that of Yao’s garbled circuits (FOCS 1986). In the semi-honest model, where just one garbled circuit is constructed and evaluated, Yao’s protocol has proven itself to be very efficient. However, a malicious adversary who constructs the garbled circuit may construct a garbling of a different circuit computing a different function, and this cannot be detected (due to the garbling). In order to solve this problem, many circuits are sent and some of them are opened to check that they are correct while the others are evaluated. This methodology, called cut-and-choose, introduces significant overhead, both in computation and in communication, and is mainly due to the number of circuits that must be used in order to prevent cheating. In this paper, we present a cut-and-choose protocol for secure computation based on garbled circuits, with security in the presence of malicious adversaries, that vastly improves on all previous protocols of this type. Concretely, for a cheating probability of at most 2−40, the best previous works send between 125 and 128 circuits. In contrast, in our protocol 40 circuits alone suffice (with some additional overhead). Asymptotically, we achieve a cheating probability of 2−s where s is the number of garbled circuits, in contrast to the previous best of 2−0.32s. We achieve this by introducing a new cut-and-choose methodology with the property that in order to cheat, all of the evaluated circuits must be incorrect, and not just the majority as in previous works. The security of our protocol relies on the Decisional Diffie-Hellman assumption.

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Efficient Secure Two-Party Computation Using Symmetric Cut-and-Choose.

Yan Huang, Jonathan I. Katz, David Evans

Beginning with the work of Lindell and Pinkas, researchers have proposed several protocols for secure two-party computation based on the cut-and-choose paradigm. In existing instantiations of this paradigm, one party generates κ garbled circuits; some fraction of those are “checked ” by the other party, and the remaining fraction are evaluated. We introduce here the idea of symmetric cut-and-choose protocols, in which each party generates κ circuits to be checked by the other party. The main advantage of our technique is that the number κ of garbled circuits can be reduced by a factor of 3 while attaining the same statistical security level as in prior work. Since the number of garbled circuits dominates the costs of the protocol, especially as larger circuits are evaluated, our protocol is expected to run up to 3 times faster than existing schemes. Preliminary experiments validate this claim. 1

•Jan 1, 2013•0 citations
Abstract. We consider secure two-party computation in a multiple-execution setting, where two parties wish to securely evaluate the same circuit multiple times. We design efficient garbled-circuit-based two-party protocols secure against malicious adversaries. Recent works by Lindell (Crypto 2013) and Huang-Katz-Evans (Crypto 2013) have obtained op-timal complexity for cut-and-choose performed over garbled circuits in the single execution setting. We show that it is possible to obtain much lower amortized overhead for cut-and-choose in the multiple-execution setting. Our efficiency improvements result from a novel way to combine a recent technique of Lindell (Crypto 2013) with LEGO-based cut-and-choose techniques (TCC 2009, Eurocrypt 2013). In concrete terms, for 40-bit statistical security we obtain a 2 × improvement (per execution) in com-munication and computation for as few as 7 executions, and require only 8 garbled circuits (i.e., a 5 × improvement) per execution for as low as 3500 executions. Our results suggest the exciting possibility that secure two-party computation in the malicious setting can be less than an order of magnitude more expensive than in the semi-honest setting. 1
In the setting of secure two-party computation, two parties wish to securely compute a joint function of their private inputs, while revealing only the output. One of the primary techniques for achieving efficient secure two-party computation is that of Yao’s garbled circuits (FOCS 1986). In the semi-honest model, where just one garbled circuit is constructed and evaluated, Yao’s protocol has proven itself to be very efficient. However, a malicious adversary who constructs the garbled circuit may construct a garbling of a different circuit computing a different function, and this cannot be detected (due to the garbling). In order to solve this problem, many circuits are sent and some of them are opened to check that they are correct while the others are evaluated. This methodology, called cut-and-choose, introduces significant overhead, both in computation and in communication, and is mainly due to the number of circuits that must be used in order to prevent cheating. In this paper, we present a cut-and-choose protocol for secure computation based on garbled circuits, with security in the presence of malicious adversaries, that vastly improves on all previous protocols of this type. Concretely, for a cheating probability of at most 2−40, the best previous works send between 125 and 128 circuits. In contrast, in our protocol 40 circuits alone suffice (with some additional overhead). Asymptotically, we achieve a cheating probability of 2−s where s is the number of garbled circuits, in contrast to the previous best of 2−0.32s. We achieve this by introducing a new cut-and-choose methodology with the property that in order to cheat, all of the evaluated circuits must be incorrect, and not just the majority as in previous works. The security of our protocol relies on the Decisional Diffie-Hellman assumption.
Protocols for secure two-party computation enable a pair of mistrusting parties to compute a joint function of their private inputs without revealing anything but the output. One of the fundamental techniques for obtaining secure computation is that of Yao’s garbled circuits. In the setting of malicious adversaries, where the corrupted party can follow any arbitrary (polynomial-time) strategy in an attempt to breach security, the cut-and-choose technique is used to ensure that the garbled circuit is constructed correctly. The cost of this technique is the construction and transmission of multiple circuits; specifically, s garbled circuits are used in order to obtain a maximum cheating probability of 2−s. In this paper, we show how to reduce the amortized cost of cut-and-choose based secure two-party computation to O s logN garbled circuits when N secure computations are run. We use this method to construct a secure protocol in the batch setting. Next, we show how the cut-
Recently, several new techniques were presented to dramatically improve key parts of secure two-party computation (2PC) protocols that use the cut-and-choose paradigm on garbled cir-cuits for 2PC with security against malicious adversaries. These include techniques for reducing the number of garbled circuits (Lindell 13, Huang et al. 13, Lindell and Riva 14, Huang et al. 14) and techniques for reducing the overheads besides garbled circuits (Mohassel and Riva 13, Shen and Shelat 13). We design a highly optimized protocol in the offline/online setting that makes use of all state-of-the-art techniques, along with several new techniques that we introduce. A crucial part of our protocol is a new technique for enforcing consistency of the inputs used by the party who garbles the circuits. This technique has both theoretical and practical advantages over previous methods. We present a prototype implementation of our new protocol, which is also the first imple-mentation of the amortized cut-and-choose technique of Lindell and Riva (Crypto 2014). Our prototype achieves a speed of just 7 ms in the online stage and just 74 ms in the offline stage per 2PC invoked, for securely computing AES in the presence of malicious adversaries (using 9 threads on two 2.9GHz machines located in the same Amazon region). We note that no prior work has gone below one second overall on average for the secure computation of AES for mali-cious adversaries (nor below 20ms in the online stage). Our implementation securely evaluates SHA-256 (which is a much bigger circuit) with 33 ms online time and 206 ms offline time, per 2PC invoked. 1
Recently, several new techniques were presented to dramatically improve key parts of secure two-party computation (2PC) protocols that use the cut-and-choose paradigm on garbled circuits for 2PC with security against malicious adversaries. These include techniques for reducing the number of garbled circuits (Lindell 13, Huang et al. 13, Lindell and Riva 14, Huang et al. 14) and techniques for reducing the overheads besides garbled circuits (Mohassel and Riva 13, Shen and Shelat~13). We design a highly optimized protocol in the offline/online setting that makes use of all state-of-the-art techniques, along with several new techniques that we introduce. A crucial part of our protocol is a new technique for enforcing consistency of the inputs used by the party who garbles the circuits. This technique has both theoretical and practical advantages over previous methods.
Applying cut-and-choose techniques to Yao’s garbled circuit protocol has been a promising approach for designing efficient Two-Party Computation (2PC) with malicious and covert security, as is evident from various optimizations and software implementations in the recent years. We revisit the security and efficiency properties of this popular approach and propose alternative constructions and definitions that are more suitable for use in practice. • We design an efficient fully-secure malicious 2PC protocol for two-output functions that only requires O(t|C|) symmetric-key operations (with small constant factors) where |C | is the circuit size and t is a statistical security parameter. This is essentially the optimal complexity for protocols based on cut-and-choose, resolving a main question left open by the previous work on the subject. Our protocol utilizes novel techniques for enforcing garbler’s input consistency and handling twooutput functions that are more efficient than all prior solutions. • Motivated by the goal of eliminating the all-or-nothing nature of 2PC with covert security (that privacy and correctness are fully compromised if the adversary is not caught in the challenge phase), we propose a new security definition for 2PC that strengthens the guarantees provided by the standard
Beginning with the work of Lindell and Pinkas, researchers have proposed several protocols for secure two-party computation based on the cut-and-choose paradigm. In existing instantiations of this paradigm, one party generates κ garbled circuits; some fraction of those are “checked ” by the other party, and the remaining fraction are evaluated. We introduce here the idea of symmetric cut-and-choose protocols, in which each party generates κ circuits to be checked by the other party. The main advantage of our technique is that the number κ of garbled circuits can be reduced by a factor of 3 while attaining the same statistical security level as in prior work. Since the number of garbled circuits dominates the costs of the protocol, especially as larger circuits are evaluated, our protocol is expected to run up to 3 times faster than existing schemes. Preliminary experiments validate this claim. 1