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Issue #111
Paper of the Week:
Paper Title: GoAT: File Geolocation via Anchor Timestamping.
TLDR:
Blockchain systems are rapidly gaining traction. Decentralized storage systems like Filecoin are a crucial component of this ecosystem that aim to provide robust file storage through a Proof of Replication (PoRep) or its variants.
However, a PoRep actually offers limited robustness. Indeed if all the file replicas are stored on a single hard disk, a single catastrophic event is enough to lose the file.
This work introduces a new primitive, Proof of Geo-Retrievability or in short PoGeoRet, that enables proving that a file is located within a strict geographic boundary.
Using PoGeoRet, one can trivially construct a PoRep by proving that a file is in several distinct geographic regions.
This work defines what it means for a PoGeoRet scheme to be complete and sound, in the process making important extensions to prior formalism.
GoAT is a practical PoGeoRet scheme to prove file geolocation. Unlike previous geolocation systems that rely on trusted-verifiers, GoAT bootstraps using public timestamping servers on the internet that serve as geolocation anchors, tolerating a local threshold of dishonest anchors.
It internally uses a communication-efficient Proof-of-Retrievability (PoRet) scheme in a novel way to achieve constant-size PoRet-component in its proofs.
GoAT’s practicality is validated by conducting an initial measurement study to find usable anchors and also perform a real-world experiment. The results show that a significant fraction of the internet can be used as anchors and that GoAT achieves geolocation radii as little as 1000km.
Authors: Deepak Maram*, Iddo Bentov*, Mahimna Kelkar*, and Ari Juels*,
Affiliations: * Cornell Tech.
Security:
1. Paper Title: Hours of Horus: Keyless Cryptocurrency Wallets.
Summary: A cryptocurrency wallet in which money can be spent using a password alone, and no private keys are required.
Authors: Dionysis Zindros*,
Affiliations: * University of Athens.
2. Paper Title: Topological Anomaly Detection in Dynamic Multilayer Blockchain Networks.
Summary: The first paper on anomaly detection in dynamic multilayer networks.
Authors: Dorcas Ofori-Boateng*, Ignacio Segovia Dominguez†, Murat Kantarcioglu†, Cuneyt G. Akcora‡, and Yulia R. Gel†,
Affiliations: * Portland State University, † University of Texas at Dallas, and ‡ University of Manitoba.
Privacy:
1. Paper Title: Manta: a Plug and Play Private DeFi Stack.
Summary: A multi-asset decentralized anonymous payment scheme and an automated market maker (AMM) based decentralized anonymous exchange scheme.
Authors: Shumo Chu*†, Yu Xia‡, and Zhenfei Zhang†,
Affiliations: * UC Santa Barbara, † Manta Network, and ‡ MIT CSAIL.
2. Paper Title: SoK: Privacy-Preserving Computing in the Blockchain Era.
Summary: A systematization of knowledge of privacy-preserving solutions in cryptocurrencies and blockchains.
Authors: Ghada Almashaqbeh* and Ravital Solomon†,
Affiliations: * University of Connecticut and † NuCypher.
3. Paper Title: Redacting Transactions from Execute-Order-Validate Blockchains.
Summary: The first design for a redactable execute-order-validate blockchain, that grants users with the right to be forgotten.
Authors: Yacov Manevich*, Artem Barger*, and Gal Assa†,
Affiliations: * IBM Haifa Research Lab and † Technion.
Scalability:
No papers.
Proofs:
1. Paper Title: Proofs of Isogeny Knowledge and Application to Post-quantum One-Time Verifiable Random Function.
Summary: A new method to prove the knowledge of an isogeny of given degree between two supersingular elliptic curves.
Authors: Antonin Leroux*,
Affiliations: * Institut Polytechnique de Paris.
2. Paper Title: VCProof: Constructing Shorter and Faster- to-Verify zkSNARKs with Vector Oracles.
Summary:
Authors: Yuncong Zhang*, Ren Zhang†‡, Geng Wang*, and Dawu Gu*,
Affiliations: * Shanghai Jiao Tong University, † Cryptape, and ‡ Shandong Institute of Blockchain.
Consensus:
1. Paper Title: Conclave: A Collective Stake Pool Protocol.
Summary: A formal design of a Collective Stake Pool, i.e., a decentralized pool with no single point of authority.
Authors: Dimitris Karakostas*‡, Aggelos Kiayias*‡, and Mario Larangeira*†,
Affiliations: * University of Edinburgh, † Tokyo Institute of Technology, and ‡ IOHK.
2. Paper Title: Multidimensional Byzantine Agreement in a Synchronous Setting.
Summary: A leaderless Byzantine agreement protocol defined for complete and synchronous networks that allows a network of nodes to reach consensus on a vector of relevant information regarding a set of observed events.
Authors: Andrea Flamini*, Riccardo Longo*, and Alessio Meneghetti*,
Affiliations: * University of Trento.
Tokenomics:
1. Paper Title: Maximizing Extractable Value from Automated Market Makers.
Summary: This work formally characterizes rational miners as players which follow an optimal strategy in the mining game.
Authors: Massimo Bartoletti*, James Hsin-yu Chiang†, and Alberto Lluch-Lafuente†.
Affiliations: * Università degli Studi di Cagliari and † Technical University of Denmark.
Research Talks:
Upcoming Events:
Decentralising the Internet with IPFS and Filecoin workshop at IFIP Networking 2021.
ACM Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2021). Call for Papers
Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology (CBT 2021). Call for Papers
Jobs:
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