International Association
for Cryptologic Research

The Groth-Sahai proof system is a highly efficient pairing-based proof system for a specific class of group-based languages. Cryptographic primitives that are compatible with these languages (such that we can express, e.g., that a ciphertext contains a valid signature for a given message) are called "structure-preserving". The combination of structure-preserving primitives with Groth-Sahai proofs allows to prove complex statements that involve encryptions and signatures, and has proved useful in a variety of applications. However, so far, the concept of structure-preserving cryptography has been confined to the pairing setting. In this work, we propose the first framework for structure-preserving cryptography in the lattice setting. Concretely, we - define "structure-preserving sets" as an abstraction of (typically noisy) lattice-based languages, - formalize a notion of generalized structure-preserving encryption and signature schemes (capturing a number of existing lattice-based encryption and signature schemes), - construct a compatible zero-knowledge argument system that allows to argue about lattice-based structure-preserving primitives, - offer a lattice-based construction of verifiably encrypted signatures in our framework. Along the way, we also discover a new and efficient strongly secure lattice-based signature scheme. This scheme combines Rückert's lattice-based signature scheme with the lattice delegation strategy of Agrawal et al., which yields more compact and efficient signatures. We hope that our framework provides a first step towards a modular and versatile treatment of cryptographic primitives in the lattice setting.

We build the first unleveled fully homomorphic signature scheme in the standard model. Our scheme is not constrained by any a-priori bound on the depth of the functions that can be homomorphically evaluated, and relies on subexponentially-secure indistinguishability obfuscation, fully-homomorphic encryption and a non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) proof system with composable zero-knowledge. Our scheme is also the first to satisfy the strong security notion of context-hiding for an unbounded number of levels, ensuring that signatures computed homomorphically do not leak the original messages from which they were computed. All building blocks are instantiable from falsifiable assumptions in the standard model, avoiding the need for knowledge assumptions. Conceptually, the main difficulty overcome by our techniques concerns bootstrapping, which is a crucial tool for obtaining unleveled fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). No equivalent technique exists for homomorphic signatures, which is why constructing unleveled fully homomorphic signature schemes has proven elusive until now.

The existence of one-way functions implies secure digital sig- natures, but not public-key encryption (at least in a black-box setting). Somewhat surprisingly, though, efficient public-key encryption schemes appear to be much easier to construct from concrete algebraic assumptions (such as the factoring of Diffie-Hellman-like assumptions) than efficient digital signature schemes. In this work, we provide one reason for this apparent difficulty to construct efficient signature schemes. Specifically, we prove that a wide range of algebraic signature schemes (in which verification essentially checks a number of linear equations over a group) fall to conceptually surprisingly simple linear algebra attacks. In fact, we prove that in an algebraic signature scheme, sufficiently many signatures can be linearly combined to a signature of a fresh message. We present attacks both in known-order and hidden-order groups (although in hidden-order settings, we have to restrict our definition of algebraic signatures a little). More explicitly, we show: – the insecurity of all algebraic signature schemes in Maurer’s generic group model, as long as the signature schemes do not rely on other cryptographic assumptions, such as hash functions. – the insecurity of a natural class of signatures in hidden-order groups, where verification consists of linear equations over group elements. We believe that this highlights the crucial role of public verifiability in digital signature schemes. Namely, while public-key encryption schemes do not require any publicly verifiable structure on ciphertexts, it is exactly this structure on signatures that invites attacks like ours and makes it hard to construct efficient signatures.

We put forth a template for constructing statistical ZAPs for NP. Our template compiles NIZKs for NP in the hidden bit model (which exist unconditionally) into statistical ZAPs using a new notion of interactive hidden-bit generator (IHBG), which adapts the notion of hidden-bit generator to the plain model by building upon the recent notion of statistically-hiding extractable commitments. We provide a construction of IHBG from the explicit hardness of the decision Diffie-Hellman assumption (where explicit refers to requiring an explicit upper bound on the advantage of any polynomial-time adversary against the assumption) and the existence of statistical ZAPs for a specific simple language, building upon the recent construction of dual-mode hidden-bit generator from (Libert et al., EUROCRYPT 2020). We provide two instantiations of the underlying simple ZAP: 1. Using the recent statistical ZAP for the Diffie-Hellman language of (Couteau and Hartmann, CRYPTO 2020), we obtain statistical ZAPs for NP assuming (the explicit hardness of) DDH in $G_1$ and kernel-DH in $G_2$ (a search assumption which is weaker than DDH), where $(G_1,G_2)$ are groups equipped with an asymmetric pairing. This improves over the recent work of (Lombardi et al., EUROCRYPT 2020) which achieved a relaxed variant of statistical ZAP for NP, under a stronger assumption. 2. Using the recent work of (Couteau et al., EUROCRYPT 2020), we obtain statistical ZAPs for NP assuming the explicit hardness of DDH, together with the assumption that no efficient adversary can break the key-dependent message one-wayness of ElGamal with respect to efficient functions over groups of size $2^\secpar$ with probability better than $\poly(\secpar)/2^{(c + o(1)) \cdot \secpar}$, denoted $2^{-c\secpar}$-\OWKDM, for a constant c = 1/2, in pairing-free groups. Note that the latter is a search discrete-log-style falsifiable assumption, incomparable to DDH (in particular, it is not known to imply public-key encryption).

We provide new constructions of non-interactive zero-knowledge arguments (NIZKs) for NP from discrete-logarithm-style assumptions over cyclic groups, without relying on pairings. A previous construction from (Canetti et al., Eurocrypt'18) achieves such NIZKs under the assumption that no efficient adversary can break the key-dependent message (KDM) security of (additive) ElGamal with respect to all (even inefficient) functions over groups of size $2^\lambda$, with probability better than $\poly(\lambda)/2^{\lambda}$. This is an extremely strong, non-falsifiable assumption. In particular, even mild (polynomial) improvements over the current best known attacks on the discrete logarithm problem would already contradict this assumption. (Canetti et al. STOC'19) describe how to improve the assumption to rely only on KDM security with respect to all efficient functions, therefore obtaining an assumption that is (in spirit) falsifiable. Our first construction improves this state of affairs. We provide a construction of NIZKs for NP under the CDH assumption together with the assumption that no efficient adversary can break the key-dependent message one-wayness of ElGamal with respect to efficient functions over groups of size $2^\lambda$, with probability better than $\poly(\lambda)/2^{c\lambda}$ (denoted $2^{-c\lambda}$-OWKDM), for a constant $c = 3/4$. Unlike the previous assumption, our assumption leaves an exponential gap between the best known attack and the required security guarantee. We also analyse whether we could build NIZKs when CDH does not hold. As a second contribution, we construct an infinitely often NIZK argument system for NP (where soundness and zero-knowledge are only guaranteed to hold for infinitely many security parameters), under the $2^{-c\lambda}$-OWKDM security of ElGamal with $c = 28/29+o(1)$, together with the existence of low-depth pseudorandom generators.

We construct new functional encryption schemes that combine the access control functionality of attribute-based encryption with the possibility of performing linear operations on the encrypted data. While such a primitive could be easily realized from fully fledged functional encryption schemes, what makes our result interesting is the fact that our schemes simultaneously achieve all the following properties. They are public-key, efficient and can be proved secure under standard and well established assumptions (such as LWE or pairings). Furthermore, security is guaranteed in the setting where adversaries are allowed to get functional keys that decrypt the challenge ciphertext. Our first results are two functional encryption schemes for the family of functions that allow users to embed policies (expressed by monotone span programs) in the encrypted data, so that one can generate functional keys to compute weighted sums on the latter. Both schemes are pairing-based and quite generic: they combine the ALS functional encryption scheme for inner products from Crypto 2016 with any attribute-based encryption schemes relying on the dual-system encryption methodology. As an additional bonus, they yield simple and elegant multi-input extensions essentially for free, thereby broadening the set of applications for such schemes. Multi-input is a particularly desirable feature in our setting, since it gives a finer access control over the encrypted data, by allowing users to associate different access policies to different parts of the encrypted data. Our second result builds identity-based functional encryption for inner products from lattices. This is achieved by carefully combining existing IBE schemes from lattices with adapted, LWE-based, variants of ALS. We point out to intrinsic technical bottlenecks to obtain richer forms of access control from lattices. From a conceptual point of view, all our results can be seen as further evidence that more expressive forms of functional encryption can be realized under standard assumptions and with little computational overhead.

Two standard security properties of a non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) scheme are soundness and zero-knowledge. But while standard NIZK systems can only provide one of those properties against unbounded adversaries, dual-mode NIZK systems allow to choose dynamically and adaptively which of these properties holds unconditionally. The only known dual-mode NIZK schemes are Groth-Sahai proofs (which have proved extremely useful in a variety of applications), and the FHE-based NIZK constructions of Canetti et al. and Peikert et al, which are concurrent and independent to this work. However, all these constructions rely on specific algebraic settings.Here, we provide a generic construction of dual-mode NIZK systems for all of NP. The public parameters of our scheme can be set up in one of two indistinguishable ways. One way provides unconditional soundness, while the other provides unconditional zero-knowledge. Our scheme relies on subexponentially secure indistinguishability obfuscation and subexponentially secure one-way functions, but otherwise only on comparatively mild and generic computational assumptions. These generic assumptions can be instantiated under any one of the DDH, $$k$$-LIN, DCR, or QR assumptions.As an application, we reduce the required assumptions necessary for several recent obfuscation-based constructions of multilinear maps. Combined with previous work, our scheme can be used to construct multilinear maps from obfuscation and a group in which the strong Diffie-Hellman assumption holds. We also believe that our work adds to the understanding of the construction of NIZK systems, as it provides a conceptually new way to achieve dual-mode properties.

We present new constructions of multi-input functional encryption (MIFE) schemes for the inner-product functionality that improve the state of the art solution of Abdalla et al. (Eurocrypt 2017) in two main directions.First, we put forward a novel methodology to convert single-input functional encryption for inner products into multi-input schemes for the same functionality. Our transformation is surprisingly simple, general and efficient. In particular, it does not require pairings and it can be instantiated with all known single-input schemes. This leads to two main advances. First, we enlarge the set of assumptions this primitive can be based on, notably, obtaining new MIFEs for inner products from plain DDH, LWE, and Decisional Composite Residuosity. Second, we obtain the first MIFE schemes from standard assumptions where decryption works efficiently even for messages of super-polynomial size.Our second main contribution is the first function-hiding MIFE scheme for inner products based on standard assumptions. To this end, we show how to extend the original, pairing-based, MIFE by Abdalla et al. in order to make it function hiding, thus obtaining a function-hiding MIFE from the MDDH assumption.