2026-07-25T14:33:02Z https://drops.dagstuhl.de/oai

oai:drops-oai.dagstuhl.de:9109 2024-03-06T10:43:23Z ddc:004 open_access

Brief Announcement: Zero-Knowledge Protocols for Search Problems Berger, Ben Brakerski, Zvika Zero-Knowledge Search Problems Interactive Proofs We consider natural ways to extend the notion of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Proofs beyond decision problems. Specifically, we consider search problems, and define zero-knowledge proofs in this context as interactive protocols in which the prover can establish the correctness of a solution to a given instance without the verifier learning anything beyond the intended solution, even if it deviates from the protocol. The goal of this work is to initiate a study of Search Zero-Knowledge (search-ZK), the class of search problems for which such systems exist. This class trivially contains search problems where the validity of a solution can be efficiently verified (using a single message proof containing only the solution). A slightly less obvious, but still straightforward, way to obtain zero-knowledge proofs for search problems is to let the prover send a solution and prove in zero-knowledge that the instance-solution pair is valid. However, there may be other ways to obtain such zero-knowledge proofs, and they may be more advantageous. In fact, we prove that there are search problems for which the aforementioned approach fails, but still search zero-knowledge protocols exist. On the other hand, we show sufficient conditions for search problems under which some form of zero-knowledge can be obtained using the straightforward way. Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik Ben Berger and Zvika Brakerski 2018 Is Part Of LIPIcs, Volume 107, 45th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2018) InProceedings Text doc-type:ResearchArticle publishedVersion application/pdf doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.105 urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-91099 https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.105 eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode