TY - GEN
T1 - Limits on the power of zero-knowledge proofs in cryptographic constructions
AU - Brakerski, Zvika
AU - Katz, Jonathan
AU - Segev, Gil
AU - Yerukhimovich, Arkady
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - For over 20 years, black-box impossibility results have been used to argue the infeasibility of constructing certain cryptographic primitives (e.g., key agreement) from others (e.g., one-way functions). A widely recognized limitation of such impossibility results, however, is that they say nothing about the usefulness of (known) nonblack-box techniques. This is unsatisfying, as we would at least like to rule out constructions using the set of techniques we have at our disposal. With this motivation in mind, we suggest a new framework for black-box constructions that encompasses constructions with a nonblack-box flavor: specifically, those that rely on zero-knowledge proofs relative to some oracle. We show that our framework is powerful enough to capture the Naor-Yung/Sahai paradigm for building a (shielding) CCA-secure public-key encryption scheme from a CPA-secure one, something ruled out by prior black-box separation results. On the other hand, we show that several black-box impossibility results still hold even in a setting that allows for zero-knowledge proofs.
AB - For over 20 years, black-box impossibility results have been used to argue the infeasibility of constructing certain cryptographic primitives (e.g., key agreement) from others (e.g., one-way functions). A widely recognized limitation of such impossibility results, however, is that they say nothing about the usefulness of (known) nonblack-box techniques. This is unsatisfying, as we would at least like to rule out constructions using the set of techniques we have at our disposal. With this motivation in mind, we suggest a new framework for black-box constructions that encompasses constructions with a nonblack-box flavor: specifically, those that rely on zero-knowledge proofs relative to some oracle. We show that our framework is powerful enough to capture the Naor-Yung/Sahai paradigm for building a (shielding) CCA-secure public-key encryption scheme from a CPA-secure one, something ruled out by prior black-box separation results. On the other hand, we show that several black-box impossibility results still hold even in a setting that allows for zero-knowledge proofs.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79953192139&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-19571-6_34
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-19571-6_34
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AN - SCOPUS:79953192139
SN - 9783642195709
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 559
EP - 578
BT - Theory of Cryptography - 8th Theory of Cryptography Conference, TCC 2011, Proceedings
PB - Springer Verlag
T2 - 8th Theory of Cryptography Conference, TCC 2011
Y2 - 28 March 2011 through 30 March 2011
ER -