IACR News
Updates on the COVID-19 situation are on the
Announcement channel.
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
24 May 2024
Björn Kriepke, Gohar Kyureghyan
We consider the map $\chi:\mathbb{F}_2^n\to\mathbb{F}_2^n$ for $n$ odd given by $y=\chi(x)$ with $y_i=x_i+x_{i+2}(1+x_{i+1})$, where the indices are computed modulo $n$. We suggest a generalization of the map $\chi$ which we call generalized $\chi$-maps. We show that these maps form an Abelian group which is isomorphic to the group of units in $\mathbb{F}_2[X]/(X^{(n+1)/2})$. Using this isomorphism we easily obtain closed-form expressions for iterates of $\chi$ and explain their properties.
Yanyi Liu, Noam Mazor, Rafael Pass
We present a simple alternative exposition of the the recent result of Hirahara and Nanashima (STOC’24) showing that one-way functions exist if (1) every language in NP has a zero-knowledge proof/argument and (2) ZKA contains non-trivial languages. Our presentation does not rely on meta-complexity and we hope it may be useful for didactic purposes.
Joseph Jaeger, Akshaya Kumar, Igors Stepanovs
We introduce a new cryptographic primitive called symmetric signcryption, which differs from traditional signcryption because the sender and recipient share a secret key. We prove that a natural composition of symmetric encryption and signatures achieves strong notions of security against attackers that can learn and control many keys. We then identify that the core encryption algorithm of the Keybase encrypted messaging protocol can be modeled as a symmetric signcryption scheme. We prove the security of this algorithm, though our proof requires assuming non-standard, brittle security properties of the underlying primitives.
Rishab Goyal, Venkata Koppula, Mahesh Sreekumar Rajasree, Aman Verma
Incompressible encryption (Dziembowski, Crypto'06; Guan, Wichs, Zhandry, Eurocrypt'22) protects from attackers that learn the entire decryption key, but cannot store the full ciphertext. In incompressible encryption, the attacker must try to compress a ciphertext within pre-specified memory bound $S$ before receiving the secret key.
In this work, we generalize the notion of incompressibility to functional encryption. In incompressible functional encryption, the adversary can corrupt non-distinguishing keys at any point, but receives the distinguishing keys only after compressing the ciphertext to within $S$ bits. An important efficiency measure for incompressible encryption is the ciphertext-rate ( i.e., $\mathsf{rate} = \frac{|m|}{|\mathsf{ct}|}\;$). We give many new results for incompressible functional encryption:
1. Incompressible attribute-based encryption for circuits from standard assumptions, with $\mathsf{ct}$-rate-$\frac{1}{2}$ and short secret keys, 2. Incompressible functional encryption for circuits from (non-incompressible) functional encryption, with (a) $\mathsf{ct}$-rate-$\frac{1}{2}$ and short secret keys, (b) $\mathsf{ct}$-rate-$1$ and large secret keys.
Our results achieve optimal efficiency, as incompressible attribute-based/functional encryption with $\mathsf{ct}$-rate-$1$ as well as short secret keys has strong implausibility barriers. Moreover, our assumptions are minimal as incompressible attribute-based/functional encryption are strictly stronger than their non-incompressible counterparts.
In this work, we generalize the notion of incompressibility to functional encryption. In incompressible functional encryption, the adversary can corrupt non-distinguishing keys at any point, but receives the distinguishing keys only after compressing the ciphertext to within $S$ bits. An important efficiency measure for incompressible encryption is the ciphertext-rate ( i.e., $\mathsf{rate} = \frac{|m|}{|\mathsf{ct}|}\;$). We give many new results for incompressible functional encryption:
1. Incompressible attribute-based encryption for circuits from standard assumptions, with $\mathsf{ct}$-rate-$\frac{1}{2}$ and short secret keys, 2. Incompressible functional encryption for circuits from (non-incompressible) functional encryption, with (a) $\mathsf{ct}$-rate-$\frac{1}{2}$ and short secret keys, (b) $\mathsf{ct}$-rate-$1$ and large secret keys.
Our results achieve optimal efficiency, as incompressible attribute-based/functional encryption with $\mathsf{ct}$-rate-$1$ as well as short secret keys has strong implausibility barriers. Moreover, our assumptions are minimal as incompressible attribute-based/functional encryption are strictly stronger than their non-incompressible counterparts.
Joseph Jaeger
An important proof technique in the random oracle model involves reprogramming it on hard to predict inputs and arguing that an attacker cannot detect that this occurred. In the quantum setting, a particularly challenging version of this considers adaptive reprogramming wherein the points to be reprogrammed (or output values they should be programmed to) are dependent on choices made by the adversary. Frameworks for analyzing adaptive reprogramming were given by, e.g., by Unruh (CRYPTO 2014), Grilo-Hövelmanns-Hülsing-Majenz (ASIACRYPT 2021), and Pan-Zeng (PKC 2024).
We show, counterintuitively, that these adaptive results follow directly from the non-adaptive one-way to hiding theorem of Ambainis-Hamburg-Unruh (CRYPTO 2019). These implications contradict beliefs (whether stated explicitly or implicitly) that some properties of the adaptive frameworks cannot be provided by the Ambainis-Hamburg-Unruh result.
We show, counterintuitively, that these adaptive results follow directly from the non-adaptive one-way to hiding theorem of Ambainis-Hamburg-Unruh (CRYPTO 2019). These implications contradict beliefs (whether stated explicitly or implicitly) that some properties of the adaptive frameworks cannot be provided by the Ambainis-Hamburg-Unruh result.
Esha Ghosh, Melissa Chase
The need for third-party auditors in privacy-preserving Key Transparency (KT) systems presents a deployment challenge. In this short note, we take a simple privacy-preserving KT system that provides strong security guarantees in the presence of an honest auditor (OPTIKS) and show how to add a auditor-free mode to it. The auditor-free mode offers slightly weaker security. We formalize this security property and prove that our proposed protocol satisfies our security definition.
Sven Schäge
We provide new results showing that ElGamal encryption cannot be proven CCA1-secure – a long-standing open problem in cryptography. Our result follows from a very broad, meta-reduction-based impossibility result on random self-reducible relations with efficiently re-randomizable witnesses. The techniques that we develop allow, for the first time, to provide impossibility results for very weak security notions where the challenger outputs fresh challenge statements at the end of the security game. This can be used to finally tackle encryption-type definitions that have remained elusive in the past. We show that our results have broad applicability by casting several known cryptographic setups as instances of random self-reducible and re-randomizable relations. These setups include general semi-homomorphic PKE and the large class of certified homomorphic one-way bijections. As a result, we also obtain new impossibility results for the IND-CCA1 security of the PKEs of Paillier and Damg ̊ard–Jurik, and many one-more inversion assumptions like the one-more DLOG or the one-more RSA assumption.
James Hsin-yu Chiang, Bernardo David, Tore Kasper Frederiksen, Arup Mondal, Esra Yeniaras
Keeping decrypting parties accountable in public key encryption is notoriously hard since the secret key owner can decrypt any arbitrary ciphertext. Threshold encryption aims to solve this issue by distributing the power to decrypt among a set of parties, who must interact via a decryption protocol. However, such parties can employ cryptographic tools such as Multiparty Computation (MPC) to decrypt arbitrary ciphertexts $\textit{without being detected}$. We introduce the notion of (threshold) encryption with Self-Incriminating Proofs, where parties must $\textit{produce a self-incriminating proof of decryption when decrypting every ciphertext}$. In the standard public key encryption case, the adversary could destroy these proofs, so we strengthen our notion to guarantee that the proofs are published when decryption succeeds. This creates a decryption audit trail, which is useful in scenarios where decryption power is held by a single trusted party ($\textit{e.g.,}$ a Trusted Execution Environment) who must be kept accountable. In the threshold case, we ensure that at least one of the parties who execute the decryption protocol will learn a self-incriminating proof, even if they employ advanced tools such as MPC. The fact that a party learns the proof and may leak it at any moment functions as a deterrent for parties who do not wish to be identified as malicious decryptors ($\textit{e.g.,}$ a commercial operator of a service based on threshold encryption). We investigate the (im)possibility and applications of our notions while providing matching constructions under appropriate assumptions. In the threshold case, we build on recent results on Individual Cryptography (CRYPTO 2023).
Jelle Don, Serge Fehr, Yu-Hsuan Huang, Jyun-Jie Liao, Patrick Struck
The BUFF transform, due to Cremers et al. (S&P'21), is a generic transformation for digital signature scheme, with the purpose of obtaining additional security guarantees beyond unforgeability: exclusive ownership, message-bound signatures, and non-resignability. Non-resignability (which essentially challenges an adversary to re-sign an unknown message for which it only obtains the signature) turned out to be a delicate matter, as recently Don et al. (CRYPTO'24) showed that the initial definition is essentially unachievable; in particular, it is not achieved by the BUFF transform. This led to the introduction of new, weakened versions of non-resignability, which are (potentially) achievable. In particular, it was shown that a salted variant of the BUFF transform does achieves some weakened version of non-resignability. However, the salting requires additional randomness and leads to slightly larger signatures. Whether the original BUFF transform also achieves some meaningful notion of non-resignability remained a natural open question.
In this work, we answer this question in the affirmative. We show that the BUFF transform satisfies the (almost) strongest notions of non-resignability one can hope for, facing the known impossibility results. Our results cover both the statistical and the computational case, and both the classical and the quantum setting. At the core of our analysis lies a new security game for random oracles that we call Hide-and-Seek. While seemingly innocent at first glance, it turns out to be surprisingly challenging to rigorously analyze.
In this work, we answer this question in the affirmative. We show that the BUFF transform satisfies the (almost) strongest notions of non-resignability one can hope for, facing the known impossibility results. Our results cover both the statistical and the computational case, and both the classical and the quantum setting. At the core of our analysis lies a new security game for random oracles that we call Hide-and-Seek. While seemingly innocent at first glance, it turns out to be surprisingly challenging to rigorously analyze.
Daniel Nager
In this document we present a further development of non-commutative algebra based key agreement due to E. Stickel and a way to deal with the algebraic break due to V. Sphilrain.
Lorenzo Grassi, Fukang Liu, Christian Rechberger, Fabian Schmid, Roman Walch, Qingju Wang
The Rasta design strategy allows building low-round ciphers due to its efficient prevention of statistical attacks and algebraic attacks by randomizing the cipher, which makes it especially suitable for hybrid homomorphic encryption (HHE), also known as transciphering. Such randomization is obtained by pseudorandomly sampling new invertible matrices for each round of each new cipher evaluation. However, naively sampling a random invertible matrix for each round significantly impacts the plain evaluation runtime, though it does not impact the homomorphic evaluation cost. To address this issue, Dasta was proposed at ToSC 2020 to reduce the cost of generating the random matrices.
In this work, we address this problem from a different perspective: How far can the randomness in Rasta-like designs be reduced in order to minimize the plain evaluation runtime without sacrificing the security? To answer this question, we carefully studied the main threats to Rasta-like ciphers and the role of random matrices in ensuring security. We apply our results to the recently proposed cipher $\text{PASTA}$, proposing a modified version called $\text{PASTA}_\text{v2}$ instantiated with one initial random matrix and fixed linear layers - obtained by combining two MDS matrices with the Kronecker product - for the other rounds.
Compared with $\text{PASTA}$, the state-of-the-art cipher for BGV- and BFV-style HHE, our evaluation shows that $\text{PASTA}_\text{v2}$ is up to 100% faster in plain while having the same homomorphic runtime in the SEAL homomorphic encryption library and up to 30% faster evaluation time in HElib, respectively.
In this work, we address this problem from a different perspective: How far can the randomness in Rasta-like designs be reduced in order to minimize the plain evaluation runtime without sacrificing the security? To answer this question, we carefully studied the main threats to Rasta-like ciphers and the role of random matrices in ensuring security. We apply our results to the recently proposed cipher $\text{PASTA}$, proposing a modified version called $\text{PASTA}_\text{v2}$ instantiated with one initial random matrix and fixed linear layers - obtained by combining two MDS matrices with the Kronecker product - for the other rounds.
Compared with $\text{PASTA}$, the state-of-the-art cipher for BGV- and BFV-style HHE, our evaluation shows that $\text{PASTA}_\text{v2}$ is up to 100% faster in plain while having the same homomorphic runtime in the SEAL homomorphic encryption library and up to 30% faster evaluation time in HElib, respectively.
Xavier Bultel
Ring signatures allow members of a group (called "ring") to sign a message anonymously within the group, which is chosen ad hoc at the time of signing (the members do not need to have interacted before). In this paper, we propose a physical version of ring signatures. Our signature is based on one-out-of-many signatures, a method used in many real cryptographic ring signatures. It consists of boxes containing coins locked with padlocks that can only be opened by a particular group member. To sign a message, a group member shakes the boxes of the other members of the group so that the coins are in a random state ("heads" or "tails", corresponding to bits $0$ and $1$), and opens their box to arrange the coins so that the exclusive "or" of the coins corresponds to the bits of the message they wish to sign. We present a prototype that can be used with coins, or with dice for messages encoded in larger (non-binary) alphabets. We suggest that this system can be used to explain ring signatures to the general public in a fun way. Finally, we propose a semi-formal analysis of the security of our signature based on real cryptographic security proofs.
Yaxi Yang, Xiaojian Liang, Xiangfu Song, Linting Huang, Hongyu Ren, Changyu Dong, Jianying Zhou
Private Set Intersection (PSI) allows two parties to compute the intersection of their input sets without revealing more information than the computation results. PSI and its variants have numerous applications in practice. Circuit-PSI is a famous variant and aims to compute any functionality $f$ on items in the intersection set. However, the existing circuit-PSI protocols only provide security against \emph{semi-honest} adversaries. One straightforward solution is to extend a pure garbled-circuit-based PSI (NDSS'12) to a maliciously secure circuit-PSI, but it will result in non-concrete complexity. Another is converting state-of-the-art semi-honest circuit-PSI protocols (EUROCRYPT'21; PoPETS'22) to be secure in the malicious setting. However, it will come across \emph{the consistency issue} since parties can not guarantee the inputs of functionality $f$ stay unchanged as obtained from the last step.
This paper addresses the aforementioned issue by introducing FairSec, the first malicious circuit-PSI protocol. The central building block of FairSec, called Distributed Dual-key Oblivious PRF (DDOPRF), provides an oblivious evaluation of secret-shared inputs with dual keys. Additionally, we ensure the compatibility of DDOPRF with SPDZ, enhancing the versatility of our circuit-PSI protocol. Notably, our construction allows us to guarantee fairness within circuit-PSI effortlessly. Importantly, FairSec also achieves linear computation and communication complexities.
This paper addresses the aforementioned issue by introducing FairSec, the first malicious circuit-PSI protocol. The central building block of FairSec, called Distributed Dual-key Oblivious PRF (DDOPRF), provides an oblivious evaluation of secret-shared inputs with dual keys. Additionally, we ensure the compatibility of DDOPRF with SPDZ, enhancing the versatility of our circuit-PSI protocol. Notably, our construction allows us to guarantee fairness within circuit-PSI effortlessly. Importantly, FairSec also achieves linear computation and communication complexities.
Sven Bauer, Fabrizio De Santis, Kristjane Koleci, Anita Aghaie
In computer arithmetic operations, the Number Theoretic
Transform (NTT) plays a significant role in the efficient implementation
of cyclic and nega-cyclic convolutions with the application of multiplying
large integers and large degree polynomials. Multiplying polynomials is
a common operation in lattice-based cryptography. Hence, the NTT is a
core component of several lattice-based cryptographic algorithms. Two
well-known examples are the key encapsulation mechanism Kyber and
the digital signature algorithm Dilithium. In this work, we introduce a
novel and efficient method for safeguarding the NTT against fault attacks.
This new countermeasure is based on polynomial evaluation and
interpolation. We prove its error detection capability, calculate the required
additional computational effort, and show how to concretely use
it to secure the NTT in Kyber and Dilithium against fault injection
attacks. Finally, we provide concrete implementation results of the proposed
novel technique on a resource-constrained ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller,
e.g., the technique exhibits a 72% relative overhead, when
applied to Dilithium.
Robin Frot, Daniel Zentai
In this paper, we present a new attack against search-LWE instances with a small secret key. The method consists of lifting the public key to $\mathbb Z$ and finding a good Diophantine approximation of the public key divided by the modulus $a$. This is done using lattice reduction algorithms. The lattice considered, and the approximation quality needed is similar to known decision-LWE attacks for small keys. However, we do not require an in-depth analysis of the reduction algorithm (any reduction algorithm giving small enough vectors is enough for us), and our method solves the search problem directly, which is harder than the decision problem.
Fukang Liu, Mohammad Mahzoun, Willi Meier
It is well-known that a system of equations becomes easier to solve when it is overdefined. In this work, we study how to overdefine the system of equations to describe the arithmetic oriented (AO) ciphers Friday, Vision, and RAIN, as well as a special system of quadratic equations over $\mathbb F_{2^{\ell}}$ used in the post-quantum signature scheme Biscuit. Our method is inspired by Courtois-Pieprzyk's and Murphy-Robshaw's methods to model AES with overdefined systems of quadratic equations over $\mathbb F_2$ and $\mathbb F_{2^8}$, respectively. However, our method is more refined and much simplified compared with Murphy-Robshaw's method, since it can take full advantage of the low-degree $\mathbb F_2$-linearized affine polynomials used in Friday and Vision, and the overdefined system of equations over $\mathbb F_{2^{\ell}}$ can be described in a clean way with our method. For RAIN, we instead consider quadratic Boolean equations rather than equations over large finite fields $\mathbb F_{2^{\ell}}$. Specifically, we demonstrate that the special structure of RAIN allows us to set up much more linearly independent quadratic Boolean equations than those obtained only with Courtois-Pieprzyk's method. Moreover, we further demonstrate that the underlying key-recovery problem in Biscuit (NIST PQC Round 1 Additional Signatures) can also be described by solving a much overdefined system of quadratic equations over $\mathbb F_{2^{\ell}}$. On the downside, the constructed systems of quadratic equations for these ciphers cannot be viewed as semi-regular, which makes it challenging to upper bound the complexity of the Gröbner basis attack. However, such a new modelling method can significantly improve the lower bound of the complexity of the Gröbner basis attacks on these ciphers, i.e., we view the complexity of solving a random system of quadratic equations of the same scale as the lower bound. How to better estimate the upper and lower bounds of the Gröbner basis attacks on these ciphers based on our modelling method is left as an open problem.
Frank Y.C. Lu
We introduce a new, concretely efficient, transparent polynomial commitment scheme with logarithmic verification time and communication cost that can run on any group. Existing group-based polynomial commitment schemes must use less efficient groups, such as class groups of unknown order or pairing-based groups to achieve transparency (no trusted setup), making them expensive to adopt in practice.
We offer the first group-based polynomial commitment scheme that can run on any group s.t. it does not rely on expensive pairing operations or require class groups of unknown order to achieve transparency while still providing logarithmic verifier time and communication cost.
The prover work of our work is dominated by $4n \,\mathbb{G}$ multi-exponentiations, the verifier work is dominated by 4 log $n \, \mathbb{G}$ exponentiations, and the communication cost is 4 log $n \, \mathbb{G}$. Since our protocol can run on fast groups such as Curve25519, we can easily accelerate the multi-exponentiations with Pippenger's algorithm. The concrete performance of our work shows a significant improvement over the current state of the art in almost every aspect.
We offer the first group-based polynomial commitment scheme that can run on any group s.t. it does not rely on expensive pairing operations or require class groups of unknown order to achieve transparency while still providing logarithmic verifier time and communication cost.
The prover work of our work is dominated by $4n \,\mathbb{G}$ multi-exponentiations, the verifier work is dominated by 4 log $n \, \mathbb{G}$ exponentiations, and the communication cost is 4 log $n \, \mathbb{G}$. Since our protocol can run on fast groups such as Curve25519, we can easily accelerate the multi-exponentiations with Pippenger's algorithm. The concrete performance of our work shows a significant improvement over the current state of the art in almost every aspect.
Owen Vaughan
We present a novel protocol for issuing and transferring tokens across blockchains without the need of a trusted third party or cross-chain bridge. In our scheme, the blockchain is used for double-spend protection only, while the authorisation of token transfers is performed off-chain. Due to the universality of our approach, it works in almost all blockchain settings. It can be implemented immediately on UTXO blockchains such as Bitcoin without modification, and on account-based blockchains such as Ethereum by introducing a smart contract that mimics the properties of a UTXO. We provide a proof-of-concept implementation of an NFT that is issued on Bitcoin, transferred to Ethereum, and then transferred back to Bitcoin. Our new approach means that users no longer need to be locked into one blockchain when issuing and transferring tokens.
Kyungbae Jang, Yujin Oh, Hwajeong Seo
As quantum computing progresses, extensive research has been conducted to find quantum advantages in the field of cryptography. Combining quantum algorithms with classical cryptographic analysis methods, such as differential cryptanalysis and linear cryptanalysis, has the potential to reduce complexity.
In this paper, we present a quantum differential finding circuit for differential cryptanalysis. In our quantum circuit, both plaintext and input difference are in a superposition state. Actually, while our method cannot achieve a direct speedup with quantum computing, it offers a different perspective by relying on quantum probability in a superposition state.
For the quantum simulation, given the limited number of qubits, we simulate our quantum circuit by implementing the Toy-ASCON quantum circuit.
In this paper, we present a quantum differential finding circuit for differential cryptanalysis. In our quantum circuit, both plaintext and input difference are in a superposition state. Actually, while our method cannot achieve a direct speedup with quantum computing, it offers a different perspective by relying on quantum probability in a superposition state.
For the quantum simulation, given the limited number of qubits, we simulate our quantum circuit by implementing the Toy-ASCON quantum circuit.
Huck Bennett, Kaung Myat Htay Win
We study the complexity of the Code Equivalence Problem on linear error-correcting codes by relating its variants to isomorphism problems on other discrete structures---graphs, lattices, and matroids. Our main results are a fine-grained reduction from the Graph Isomorphism Problem to the Linear Code Equivalence Problem over any field $\mathbb{F}$, and a reduction from the Linear Code Equivalence Problem over any field $\mathbb{F}_p$ of prime, polynomially bounded order $p$ to the Lattice Isomorphism Problem. Both of these reductions are simple and natural. We also give reductions between variants of the Code Equivalence Problem, and study the relationship between isomorphism problems on codes and linear matroids.