Elliptic Curve Secret Sharing for Smart Contract Setup
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing blockchain-based smart contract systems face challenges in securely sharing cryptographic materials among multiple parties without exposing a shared secret, requiring cryptographic techniques and verifiable communications channels.
Innovation Solution
A protocol for multi-party verification key recording on a blockchain that allows parties to exchange quantities to determine powers of a shared secret without encryption, using off-chain communications and polynomial interpolation to generate a common reference string.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If cryptographic techniques and verifiable communications channels are used to securely share cryptographic materials, then security is improved, but computational overhead increases and efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The cryptographic material sharing process is segmented into distinct phases: setup phase where a trusted dealer generates secret shares, and execution phase where parties use pre-distributed shares. This segmentation allows security-critical operations to be performed once during setup, while execution becomes efficient and lightweight, resolving the contradiction between security and efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
Secret shares are distributed to parties in advance during a setup phase before the actual cryptographic operations are needed. This preliminary action ensures that when parties need to perform cryptographic operations, they already possess the necessary secret material, eliminating the need for real-time secure communication channels and reducing computational overhead during execution.
2Reliability
If cryptographic techniques are used to protect shared secrets during exchange, then confidentiality is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The complexity of cryptographic key management and secret protection is extracted and consolidated into a trusted dealer entity that performs the secret distribution once. The remaining parties simply store and use their pre-distributed secret shares without needing complex cryptographic protocols, thereby reducing overall system complexity while maintaining confidentiality.
Solution Approach 2:
A trusted dealer acts as an intermediary that facilitates secure secret distribution by generating and distributing secret shares to parties. This intermediary handles the complexity of secure key management centrally, allowing individual parties to use simple secret share storage and operations, thus reducing their device complexity while maintaining confidentiality through the intermediary's secure processes.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple parties exchange cryptographic materials directly, then adaptability is improved, but loss of information increases due to exposure risks
Solution Approach 1:
The secret is segmented into multiple secret shares distributed to different parties. Each party holds only a portion of the secret, making it impossible for any single party or small coalition to reconstruct the full secret. This segmentation enables flexible multi-party collaboration while preventing information loss through exposure, as compromised parties only leak their individual shares which are insufficient to reconstruct the secret.
Solution Approach 2:
Different parties have different local qualities in terms of their secret share permissions and capabilities. Each party's secret share is tailored to their specific role and requirements in the protocol, allowing adaptable participation while maintaining security. The local quality of each party's secret material ensures that even if exposed, the information loss is limited to that party's specific share rather than the entire secret.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods described herein relate to techniques in which multiple parties each generate and exchange quantities that are based on a shared secret (e.g., powers of the shared secret) without exposing the shared secret. According to a protocol, two or more parties may exchange sets of elliptic curve points generated over polynomials that can be used, by each of the two or more parties, to determine a power of a shared secret. The protocol may be utilised as part of determining parameters for a smart contract that is broadcast to a blockchain network (e.g., Bitcoin). Based on the protocol, an additional party (e.g., a third party different from the two or more parties) may perform a computational task such as execution of the smart contract.