Work

A Machine-Checked Formalization of Sigma-Protocols

Year: 2010

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Zero-knowledge proofs have a vast applicability in the domain of cryptography, stemming from the fact that they can be used to force potentially malicious parties to abide by the rules of a protocol, without forcing them to reveal their secrets. Σ-protocols are a class of zero-knowledge proofs that can be implemented efficiently and that suffice for a great variety of practical applications. This paper presents a first machine-checked formalization of a comprehensive theory of Σ-protocols. The development includes basic definitions, relations between different security properties that appear in the literature, and general composability theorems. We show its usefulness by formalizing—and proving the security—of concrete instances of several well-known protocols. The formalization builds on CertiCrypt, a framework that provides support to reason about cryptographic systems in the Coq proof assistant, and that has been previously used to formalize security proofs of encryption and signature schemes.

Source: IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop (CSFW)

DOI: 10.1109/csf.2010.24

Authors: Gilles Barthe, Daniel Hedin, Santiago Zanella Béguelin, Benjamin Grégoire, Sylvain Heraud

Institutions: IMDEA Software Institute, Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique, Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur

Language: English

Topic: Cryptography and Data Security

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: Agence Nationale de la Recherche

Award: Security of Cryptographic Algorithms with Probabilities