Auditable Secret Sharing via Hash Tree Aggregation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing secret-sharing schemes do not adequately ensure the integrity and secrecy of individual contributions in aggregate computations, particularly in scenarios where parties need to maintain the confidentiality of their inputs while allowing for reliable auditing and verification.
Innovation Solution
A system where parties decompose their inputs into shares and transmit these shares to nodes, which aggregate them using hash trees and encryption, allowing for secure summation and verification without revealing individual contributions, while maintaining secrecy through collision-resistant hash functions and semi-homomorphic encryption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If parties share their individual contributions to compute aggregate results, then the accuracy and reliability of the aggregate computation is improved, but the confidentiality and secrecy of individual contributions deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides individual contributions into multiple secret shares that are distributed across multiple nodes. Each contribution is segmented into n shares such that any k shares can reconstruct the original value, but fewer than k shares reveal no information about the contribution. This segmentation enables aggregate computation while preserving confidentiality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces trusted nodes as intermediaries that facilitate the secret sharing and aggregation process. These nodes receive secret shares from parties, perform computations on the shares without revealing individual contributions, and enable verification of the aggregate result. The intermediaries bridge the gap between maintaining secrecy and ensuring computational integrity.
2Loss of information
If secret sharing schemes are used to protect individual contributions, then the confidentiality of inputs is improved, but the ability to audit and verify the computation process deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements verification mechanisms where nodes provide feedback about the correctness of share aggregation. The system includes proof-of-knowledge protocols and verification equations that allow parties to audit whether nodes have correctly computed aggregate results from the secret shares without revealing the individual contributions. This feedback loop ensures computational reliability while maintaining secrecy.
3Reliability
If multiple nodes aggregate secret shares to compute results, then the reliability and verification capability is improved, but the system complexity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent designs the secret sharing scheme to be universally applicable across different computation scenarios. The same framework of secret shares, polynomial interpolation, and verification protocols can be used for various aggregate computation tasks. This universality reduces the need for scenario-specific complex mechanisms while maintaining reliability and verification capabilities.
Data Source
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AI summary
Parties (100) communicate input values to a central entity (300) by first decomposing them according to a chosen operation into share values, which are sent either directly or, in a transformed form such as being hashed and/or encrypted, via a bulletin board data structure (400), to respective nodes (200), such that no node receives the input value itself. The nodes then combine the share values using the operation and pass these respective node values to the central entity for computation of a global value (S). The operation of the parties and of the nodes may be made verifiable by aggregating the share values within a party or the received share values within a node using a data and computational structure such as a hash tree or skip list. Digital signing and timestamping may also be applied.