Abstract

We present a publicly verifiable, VDF-free leader-election protocol for blockchain consensus that eliminates per-hop grinding over participant-chosen randomness. The protocol realizes a deterministic random walk over the roster using a transcript-bound BLS relay chain: at hop (k), party (i_k) signs the canonical message (m_k=(Dst,M_{e,r},Sigma_{k-1},i_k)), updates (Sigma_k), and evaluates domain-separated hashes on the new state for leadership testing and successor selection. The first hop whose leadership coin falls below the threshold is the first emph{eligible} leader; if a designated successor or an eligible leader withholds, the protocol uses timeout-certified deterministic failover until a final emph{accepted} leader is produced.

In the random-oracle model, deterministic BLS fixes each hop signature and the evolving aggregate (Sigma_k) yields fresh transcript-bound inputs, so the per-hop eligibility bits are i.i.d. Bernoulli((p)). Hence the first eligible hop count is geometric with mean (1/p). Under (Delta)-bounded synchrony, the corresponding no-withholding delay satisfies (mathbb{E}[T]le Delta/p) and (T_{varepsilon}leDeltaleftlceil ln(varepsilon)/ln(1-p)rightrceil); under exact per-hop latency (Delta), these bounds are equalities. Under withholding, realized-output fairness is over the effective non-withholding set, and if an attempted hop is honest and responsive with probability (h), then the accepted-leader attempt count is geometric with parameter (hp), giving (mathbb{E}[T]=(hDelta_h+(1-h)Delta_b)/(hp)).

Phase~I supplies a public epoch seed and governance threshold key, and epoch transitions use verifiable re-sharing of the same governance secret without public-key rotation. The relay supports transparent replay and a succinct proof mode, making the auditability/bandwidth tradeoff explicit. We prove ROM guarantees and give a scoped UC realization of the relay abstraction.

Abstract

Electronic voting systems must balance public ver-
ifiability with voter privacy and coercion resistance. Existing cryptographic protocols achieve end-to-end verifiability by revealing vote distributions, relying on trusted clients, or issuing transferable receipts. We present ACE, a voting protocol that achieves public auditability, tally-hiding, and information-theoretic receipt-freeness, assuming a single honest tallier and no client-side trust.

Abstract

(57) ABSTRACT A blockchain system for mining a transaction using parallel blocks to improve scalability is provided. The blockchain system includes a sender node, a blockchain network, and mining nodes. The sender node (i) creates a transaction, and (ii) broadcasts the transaction on the blockchain network. Each of the mining nodes is configured to (I) split the transaction into disjoint subsets based on a hash value of the public key;(II) assign the disjoint subsets to a plurality of sub-chains that are mined in parallel by a plurality of miners;(III) mine the parallel block followed by a mining block; and (IV) verify multiple sets of transactions associated with the parallel block using an umbrella-proof-of-work method, thereby improving scalability of the blockchain system.

Abstract

A system and method for establishing a secure communication agreement between an initiating unit 102 and a responding unit 104 through a channel 106 are provided. The method includes generating, using first set of local random numbers, multi-dimensional matrices by an initiating unit. The method includes computing a transcript by the initiating unit based on multi-dimensional matrices and communicating to the responding unit. The method includes determining response by selecting a subset of the transcript to communicate response to the initiating unit. The method includes iteratively generating, communicating a subsequent transcript and waiting for a subsequent response from the responding unit for one or more times. The method includes computing a secret key as a function of the first set of local random numbers, the second set of local numbers, the subsequent transcripts, the subsequent responses

Abstract

Encrypted data is susceptible to side-channel attacks like usage and access analysis. Techniques like
Oblivious-RAM (ORAM) and privacy information retrieval and writing aim to hide clients' access pattern
while accessing encrypted data on a distrusted server. However, current techniques are constructed for a single server model making them unsuitable and inefficient for contemporary distributed architectures. In our work, we address this problem and provide a solution to private information update using packed secret sharing. Our protocol, named "Private Information Update for Distributed Infrastructure" PIUDI, aims to mitigate the attacks to which PIR-Writing protocols are more susceptible in a distributed environment. Our scheme is secure in presence of up to t + k − 1 compromised parties where k is the size of the data set. We also provide an analysis of our protocol for computational efficiency and gas cost in blockchains.