In this work, we present a concretely efficient lattice-based zero-knowledge proof system that satisfies straight-line extractability. At the heart of our construction is a novel, non-generic application of the Katsumata transform (CRYPTO 2021) to the widely adopted zero-knowledge framework of Lyubashevsky, Nguyen and Plançon (CRYPTO 2022). Our approach significantly optimizes the proof size, achieving a 2X reduction compared to prior generic techniques. This makes our scheme particularly well-suited for anonymous credential systems, secure multi-party computation, and proving quantum security, where straight-line extractability is essential.
In this work, we present a concretely efficient lattice-based zero-knowledge proof system that satisfies straight-line extractability. At the heart of our construction is a novel, non-generic application of the Katsumata transform (CRYPTO 2021) to the widely adopted zero-knowledge framework of Lyubashevsky, Nguyen and Plançon (CRYPTO 2022). Our approach significantly optimizes the proof size, achieving a 2X reduction compared to prior generic techniques. This makes our scheme particularly well-suited for anonymous credential systems, secure multi-party computation, and proving quantum security, where straight-line extractability is essential.
Abstract The lattice-based cryptographic accumulators, which enable short zero-knowledge arguments of membership, have numerous applications in post-quantum privacy-preserving protocols. However, most efficient quantum-safe zero-knowledge arguments are PCP-based systems and rely on non-falsifiable assumptions. For non-PCP-based constructions using the state-of-the-art techniques on compressing lattice-based zero-knowledge proofs, the concrete size of the resulting proof for accumulators with 232 members is at least 500 KB. In this paper, we propose a compact non-PCP zero-knowledge proof for the lattice-based Merkle-tree, which leads to an efficient post-quantum cryptographic accumulator. The complexity of our construction is logarithmic in l⋅ns, where l and ns denote the depth of the underlying Merkle-tree and the size of a node, respectively, and the concrete size is only $143.7\ $KB when l=32. In particular, we provide an improved lattice-based Bulletproof with efficient knowledge extraction, which allows large challenge space but small soundness slack. Furthermore, the amortized technique can be applied to the Bulletproof without breaking the knowledge soundness due to our improved knowledge extraction. As a direct application, we present a practical lattice-based ring signature, which can achieve logarithmical signing/verifying computational complexity with the number of the ring, while the state-of-the-art constructions (CRYPTO 21) have linear computational complexity.
Lattice-based non-interactive zero-knowledge proof has been widely used in one-way communication and can be effectively applied to resist quantum attacks. However, lattice-based non-interactive zero-knowledge proof schemes have long faced and paid more attention to some efficiency issues, such as proof size and verification time. In this paper, we propose the non-interactive zero-knowledge proof schemes from RLWE-based key exchange by making use of the Hash function and public-key encryption. We then show how to apply the proposed schemes to achieve the fixed proof size and rapid public verification. Compared with previous approaches, our schemes can realize better effectiveness in proof size and verification time. In addition, the proposed schemes are secure from completeness, soundness, and zero-knowledge.
We present a novel lattice-based zero-knowledge proof system for showing that (arbitrary-sized) committed integers satisfy additive and multiplicative relationships. The proof sizes of our schemes are between two to three orders of magnitude smaller than in the lattice proof system of Libert et al. (CRYPTO 2018) for the same relations. Because the proof sizes of our protocols grow linearly in the integer length, our proofs will eventually be longer than those produced by quantum-safe succinct proof systems for general circuits (e.g. Ligero, Aurora, etc.). But for relations between reasonably-sized integers (e.g. 512-bit), our proofs still result in the smallest zero-knowledge proof system based on a quantum-safe assumption. Of equal importance, the run-time of our proof system is at least an order of magnitude faster than any other quantum-safe scheme.
With the rapid development of quantum computers, proofs of quantumness have recently become an interesting research direction. However, in current schemes for proofs of quantumness, quantum provers face the risk of being maliciously exploited by classical verifiers. Through malicious strategies in interaction with quantum provers, classical verifiers could solve some instances of hard problems that arise from the specific scheme in use. This is due to the lack of formalization that prevents malicious verifiers from extracting useful information in proofs of quantumness. To address this issue, we formalize zero-knowledge proofs of quantumness. Intuitively, the zero-knowledge property necessitates that the information gained by the classical verifier from interactions with the quantum prover should not surpass what can be simulated using a simulated classical prover interacting with the same verifier. As a result, the new zero-knowledge notion can prevent a malicious verifier from exploiting quantum advantage. We find that the classical zero-knowledge proof is sufficient to compile some existing proofs of quantumness schemes into zero-knowledge proofs of quantumness schemes. It appears to be more general to require zero-knowledge proof on the verifier side instead of the prover side. This helps to regulate the verifier's behavior from malicious to be honest-but-curious. As a result, both parties will play not only one role in the proofs of quantumness but also the dual role in the classical zero-knowledge proof. Specifically, Shor's factoring-based scheme and the learning with errors-based scheme in [Brakerski et al., FOCS, 2018] can be transformed into zero-knowledge proofs of quantumness by requiring an extractable non-interactive zero-knowledge argument on the verifier side. Zero-knowledge proofs of quantumness can thus be viewed as an enhanced security notion for proofs of quantumness.
Lattice-based cryptography is one of the most active research topics in cryptography in recent years. In many cryptographic constructions based on lattice assumptions, the building block is a proof of knowledge of a solution to an instance of the Inhomogeneous Small Integer Solution (ISIS) problem. However, all known such proof \n \nsystems have relatively weak security guarantees: Breaking each of these protocols is potentially easier than solving the underlying instance of the ISIS problem. As a consequence, cryptographic constructions relying on these proof systems typically inherit the sub-optimal security guarantees. Therefore, proof systems with stronger security guarantees are highly desirable. Such protocols are not only interesting from a theoretical point of view, but they also lead to lattice-based cryptographic constructions relying on weaker hardness assumptions than the contemporary schemes. \n \n \n \nIn this thesis, we construct a series of zero-knowledge proofs of knowledge with strong security guarantees and reasonable communication costs, that can find various applications in lattice-based cryptography. Our constructions rely on a simple, yet versatile and effective technique, called Decomposition-Extension. When adapting this technique to the Stern-KTX proof system (Stern ‘96 - Kawachi, Tanaka, Xagawa ‘08), we obtain a zero-knowledge proof of knowledge for the ISIS problem (in the infinity norm) with a very strong security guarantee: Breaking the protocol is as least as hard as solving the underlying ISIS instance. We then develop our technique to design the following lattice-based cryptographic constructions: \n \n \n \n- Efficient zero-knowledge proofs of plaintext knowledge with strong security guarantees \n \nfor 4 encryption schemes based on the Learning with Errors problem: Regev’s scheme (Regev ‘05); the Dual-Regev scheme (Gentry, Peikert, Vaikuntanathan ‘08); the PVW scheme (Peikert, Vaikuntanathan, Waters ‘08); and the GHV scheme (Gentry, Halevi, Vaikuntanathan ‘10). Our results immediately yield 4 lattice-based interactive encryption protocols that are secure under chosen ciphertext attacks. Previously, only zero-knowledge proofs of plaintext knowledge for Regev’s scheme were known, and they are relatively inefficient with rather weak security guarantees. \n \n \n \n- A lattice-based identity-based identification scheme relying on a weaker hardness assumption than in the previous works. Furthermore, we introduce an identity-based ring identification scheme based on the worst-case hardness of lattice problems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such scheme. \n \n \n \n- An improved lattice-based group signature scheme relying on relatively weak hardness assumptions, in which the signature size is logarithmic in the number of group users. Earlier lattice-based group signature schemes, which were published before 2013, rely on relatively weak hardness assumptions but have the undesirable property that the size of the signature is linear in the number of group users. A recent scheme (Laguillaumie, Langlois, Libert, Stehlé ‘13) achieves logarithmic signature size but it has to rely on relatively strong hardness assumptions. Our construction, thus, simultaneously achieves the good features of the existing schemes.
Abstract Zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (zk-SNARKs) are cryptographic protocols that offer efficient and privacy-preserving means of verifying NP language relations and have drawn considerable attention for their appealing applications, e.g., verifiable computation and anonymous payment protocol. Compared with the pre-quantum case, the practicability of this primitive in the post-quantum setting is still unsatisfactory, especially for the space complexity. To tackle this issue, this work seeks to enhance the efficiency and compactness of lattice-based zk-SNARKs, including proof length and common reference string (CRS) length. In this paper, we develop the framework of square span program-based SNARKs and design new zk-SNARKs over cyclotomic rings. Compared with previous works, our construction is without parallel repetition and achieves shorter proof and CRS lengths than previous lattice-based zk-SNARK schemes. Particularly, the proof length of our scheme is around 23.3% 23.3 % smaller than the recent shortest lattice-based zk-SNARKs by Ishai et al. (in: Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGSAC conference on computer and communications security, pp 212–234, 2021), and the CRS length is 3.6× 3.6 × smaller. Our constructions follow the framework of Gennaro et al. (in: Proceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGSAC conference on computer and communications security, pp 556–573, 2018), and adapt it to the ring setting by slightly modifying the knowledge assumptions. We develop concretely small constructions by using module-switching and key-switching procedures in a novel way.