Issue #90
Paper of the Week:
Paper Title: Proof-Carrying Data without Succinct Arguments.
TLDR:
Proof-carrying data (PCD) is a powerful cryptographic primitive that enables mutually distrustful parties to perform distributed computations that run indefinitely.
Known approaches to construct PCD are based on succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (SNARKs) that have a succinct verifier or a succinct accumulation scheme for their proofs.
This paper shows how to obtain PCD without relying on SNARKs. It constructs a PCD scheme given any non-interactive argument of knowledge (e.g., with linear-size proofs) that has a split accumulation scheme, which is a weak form of accumulation that is introduced.
The work additionally constructs a transparent non-interactive argument of knowledge for R1CS whose accumulation is verifiable via a constant number of group and field operations.
This leads, via the random oracle heuristic and the result above, to efficiency improvements for PCD. Along the way, this work constructs a split accumulation scheme for a simple polynomial commitment scheme based on Pedersen commitments.
The results are supported by a modular and efficient implementation.
Authors: Benedikt Bünz*, Alessandro Chiesa†, William Lin†, Pratyush Mishra†, and Nicholas Spooner‡,
Affiliations: * Stanford University, † UC Berkeley, and ‡ Boston University.
Security:
1. Paper Title: Aggregatable Distributed Key Generation.
Summary: A distributed key generation (DKG) protocol with aggregatable and publicly-verifiable transcripts that reduces the size of the final transcript and the time to verify it from O(n^2) to O(nlogn), where n denotes the number of parties.
Authors: Kobi Gurkan*†, Philipp Jovanovic‡, Mary Maller†, Sarah Meiklejohn‡, Gilad Stern§, Alin Tomescu✜,
Affiliations: * cLabs, † Ethereum Foundation, ‡ University College London, § Hebrew University, and ✜ VMware Research.
2. Paper Title: A Survey on Vulnerabilities of Ethereum Smart Contracts.
Summary: This paper discusses Smart Contract (SC) vulnerabilities and classifies them according to the domain knowledge of the faulty operations.
Authors: Zulfiqar Ali Khan* and Akbar Siami Namin*,
Affiliations: * Texas Tech University.
3. Paper Title: Armiarma: Ethereum2 Network Monitoring Tool.
Summary: An Eth2 network monitor tool used to generate a complete analysis of the p2p network of the Eth2 main net.
Authors: Mikel Cortes-Goicoechea* and Leonardo Bautista-Gomez*,
Affiliations: * Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
4. Paper Title: A Decentralized Dynamic PKI based on Blockchain.
Summary: A general model and a solution for decentralized and dynamic PKI based on a blockchain and web of trust model where the traditional CA and digital certificates are removed and instead, everything is registered on the blockchain.
Authors: Mohsen Toorani* and Christian Gehrmann*,
Affiliations: * Lund University.
5. Paper Title: Crypto-Hotwire: Illegal Blockchain Mining at Zero Cost Using Public Infrastructures.
Summary: The possibility of converting energy into cash also opens up opportunities for a new kind of cyber attack aimed at illegally mining cryptocurrencies by stealing energy.
Authors: Felipe Ribas Coutinho*, Victor Pires*, Claudio Miceli*, and Daniel S. Menasche*,
Affiliations: * UFRJ.
Privacy:
1. Paper Title: Blockchain Privacy Through Merge Avoidance and Mixing Services: a Hardness and an Impossibility Result.
Summary: Whereas optimal merge avoidance leads to an NP-hard optimization problem, incentive-compatible mixing services are subject to a certain class of impossibility results.
Authors: Jefferson E. Simoes*, Eduardo Ferreira*, Daniel S. Menasche*, and Carlos A. V. Campos†,
Affiliations: * UFRJ and † UNIRIO,
Scalability:
No papers.
Proofs:
No papers.
Consensus:
1. Paper Title: e-PoS: Making Proof-of-Stake Decentralized and Fair.
Summary: A modular version of PoS-based blockchain systems that resists the centralization of network resources by extending mining opportunities to a wider set of stakeholders.
Authors: Muhammad Saad*, Zhan Qin†, Kui Ren†, DaeHun Nyang‡, and David Mohaisen*,
Affiliations: * University of Central Florida, † Zhejiang University, and ‡ Ewha Womans University.
2. Paper Title: SG-PBFT: a Secure and Highly Efficient Blockchain PBFT Consensus Algorithm for Internet of Vehicles.
Summary: A secure and highly efficient PBFT consensus algorithm for Internet of Vehicles, which is based on a distributed blockchain structure.
Authors: Guangquan Xu*†, Yihua Liu†, Jun Xing*, Tao Luo†, Yonghao Gu‡, Shaoying Liu§, Xi Zheng✜, and Athanasios V. Vasilakos+,
Affiliations: * Qingdao Huanghai University, † Tianjin University, ‡ Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, § Hiroshima University, ✜ Macquarie University, and + University of Technology Sydney.
Tokenomics:
1. Paper Title: Stablecoin Billionaires - A Descriptive Analysis of the Ethereum-based Stablecoin Ecosystem.
Summary: There are extreme concentrations of power within the token contracts of centralized Stablecoins, while decentralized tokens such as DAI lacked structural power imbalances.
Authors: Anton Wahrstätter*,
Affiliations: * University of Innsbruck.
2. Paper Title: Blockchain and Other Distributed Ledger Technologies, An Advanced Primer.
Summary: This work reviews the current state of this technology and to discuss some of its advantages and drawbacks in settings beyond crypto-currencies.
Authors: Gilles Hilary*,
Affiliations: * Georgetown University.
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