On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation
The introduction of a non-black-box simulation technique by Barak (FOCS 2001) has been a major landmark in cryptography, breaking the previous barriers of black-box impossibility. Barak's technique has given rise to various powerful applications and is a key component in all known protocols wit...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100819 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8361-6035 |
| _version_ | 1826193204028899328 |
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| author | Bitansky, Nir Paneth, Omer |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Bitansky, Nir Paneth, Omer |
| author_sort | Bitansky, Nir |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The introduction of a non-black-box simulation technique by Barak (FOCS 2001) has been a major landmark in cryptography, breaking the previous barriers of black-box impossibility. Barak's technique has given rise to various powerful applications and is a key component in all known protocols with non-black-box simulation. We present the first non-black-box simulation technique that does not rely on Barak's technique (or on nonstandard assumptions). Invoking this technique, we obtain new and improved protocols resilient to various resetting attacks. These improvements include weaker computational assumptions and better round complexity. A prominent feature of our technique is its compatibility with rewinding techniques from classic black-box zero-knowledge protocols. The combination of rewinding with non-black-box simulation has proven instrumental in coping with challenging goals such as simultaneously resettable zero-knowledge, proofs of knowledge, and resettable security from one-way functions. While previous works required tailored modifications to Barak's technique, we give a general recipe for combining our technique with rewinding. This yields simplified resettable protocols in the above settings, as well as improvements in round complexity and required computational assumptions. The main ingredient in our technique is a new impossibility result for general program obfuscation. The results extend the impossibility result of Barak et al. (CRYPTO 2001) to the case of obfuscation with approximate functionality, thus settling a question left open by Barak et al. In the converse direction, we show a generic transformation from any resettably sound zero-knowledge protocol to a family of functions that cannot be obfuscated. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:35:18Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/100819 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:35:18Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1008192022-09-30T15:31:15Z On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation Bitansky, Nir Paneth, Omer Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Bitansky, Nir The introduction of a non-black-box simulation technique by Barak (FOCS 2001) has been a major landmark in cryptography, breaking the previous barriers of black-box impossibility. Barak's technique has given rise to various powerful applications and is a key component in all known protocols with non-black-box simulation. We present the first non-black-box simulation technique that does not rely on Barak's technique (or on nonstandard assumptions). Invoking this technique, we obtain new and improved protocols resilient to various resetting attacks. These improvements include weaker computational assumptions and better round complexity. A prominent feature of our technique is its compatibility with rewinding techniques from classic black-box zero-knowledge protocols. The combination of rewinding with non-black-box simulation has proven instrumental in coping with challenging goals such as simultaneously resettable zero-knowledge, proofs of knowledge, and resettable security from one-way functions. While previous works required tailored modifications to Barak's technique, we give a general recipe for combining our technique with rewinding. This yields simplified resettable protocols in the above settings, as well as improvements in round complexity and required computational assumptions. The main ingredient in our technique is a new impossibility result for general program obfuscation. The results extend the impossibility result of Barak et al. (CRYPTO 2001) to the case of obfuscation with approximate functionality, thus settling a question left open by Barak et al. In the converse direction, we show a generic transformation from any resettably sound zero-knowledge protocol to a family of functions that cannot be obfuscated. Check Point Institute for Information Security Israel Science Foundation (Grant 20006317) Fulbright Program IBM Research (Ph.D. Fellowship) 2016-01-13T23:54:16Z 2016-01-13T23:54:16Z 2015-10 2015-03 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0097-5397 1095-7111 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100819 Bitansky, Nir, and Omer Paneth. “On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation.” SIAM Journal on Computing 44, no. 5 (January 2015): 1325–1383. © 2015 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8361-6035 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1137/130928236 SIAM Journal on Computing Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics |
| spellingShingle | Bitansky, Nir Paneth, Omer On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation |
| title | On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation |
| title_full | On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation |
| title_fullStr | On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation |
| title_full_unstemmed | On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation |
| title_short | On Non-Black-Box Simulation and the Impossibility of Approximate Obfuscation |
| title_sort | on non black box simulation and the impossibility of approximate obfuscation |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100819 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8361-6035 |
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