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Secure Proof Verification Blockchain Patterns

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Business Process Management: Blockchain, Robotic Process Automation, Central and Eastern European, Educators and Industry Forum (BPM 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 527))

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Abstract

In blockchain networks, transaction data is accessible to all participants by design and hence verifiable. This verifiability feature of data stored on the ledger by any participant fosters trust within data, especially in uncertain environments. However, the public nature of onchain data imposes limitations across various scenarios as subsets of data should be kept private. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) have emerged as a solution within the literature to overcome this issue. The raw data is not published onchain, only a proof of knowledge of this data is. Hence, the blockchain is used as a trustworthy means for proof verification without requiring data disclosure. Despite their effective use in many scenarios, the formalization of zero-knowledge proof techniques within blockchain settings remains under-explored in current literature, and makes their integration difficult for non-expert blockchain practitioners due to the plurality and complexity of zero knowledge proofs. Software engineering patterns are used in the literature to formalize recurring software engineering practices stemming from the literature and experience of practitioners. Several patterns have been proposed to formalize blockchain-based architecture practices. However, no blockchain patterns tailored to confidential proofs using ZKPs have been designed in the literature. Hence, this paper aims to address this gap by formalizing key blockchain patterns relying on ZKP to handle secure proof verification identified in the literature. We formalize a general pattern called Secure Proof Verification pattern and three related sub-patterns, two of them focusing on efficient or trustless proof verification, and one specifically designed for interval membership verification to aid practitioners in selecting the most suitable non-interactive ZKP design for a blockchain-based application.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A succinct proof is a cryptographic construct that enables the verification of complex computations or statements using a compact proof size, typically much smaller than the original computation.

  2. 2.

    Another ZKP building on Hiding queries to polynomials are Multi-use circuits (Reducing computational problems into arithmetic circuits). However, no scheme has been identified for a blockchain use.

  3. 3.

    Two advantages from using hash functions: (1) quantum resistance, (2) no trusted set-up (more transparent and auditable than zk-SNARKs) [3, 8, 31].

  4. 4.

    List of identified STARK libraries at the time of writing: libSTARK, STARKware STARKDEX alpha, STARKExchange, distaff, Cairo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, List, 91120, Palaiseau, France

    Tiphaine Henry & Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni

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  1. Tiphaine Henry
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  2. Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni
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Correspondence to Tiphaine Henry .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Claudio Di Ciccio

  2. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Walid Fdhila

  3. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Simone Agostinelli

  4. University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Daniel Amyot

  5. Kühne Logistics University, Hamburg, Germany

    Henrik Leopold

  6. Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Michal Krčál

  7. TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Monika Malinova Mandelburger

  8. University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia

    Gregor Polančič

  9. University of Zagreb, Varaždin, Croatia

    Katarina Tomičić-Pupek

  10. AGH University of Krakow, Kraków, Poland

    Katarzyna Gdowska

  11. University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Thomas Grisold

  12. University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Poland

    Piotr Sliż

  13. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Iris Beerepoot

  14. University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Renata Gabryelczyk

  15. University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Ralf Plattfaut

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Henry, T., Tucci-Piergiovanni, S. (2024). Secure Proof Verification Blockchain Patterns. In: Di Ciccio, C., et al. Business Process Management: Blockchain, Robotic Process Automation, Central and Eastern European, Educators and Industry Forum. BPM 2024. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 527. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70445-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70445-1_5

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