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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITC.2025.7

Linear-Time Secure Merge in O(loglog n) Rounds

Authors: Mark Blunk, Paul Bunn, Samuel Dittmer, Steve Lu, and Rafail Ostrovsky

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 343, 6th Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2025)

Abstract

The problem of Secure Merge consists of combining two sorted lists (which are either held separately by two parties, or secret-shared among two or more parties), and outputting a single merged (sorted) list, secret-shared among all parties. Just as insecure algorithms for comparison-based sorting are slower than merging (i.e., for lists of size n, Θ(n log n) versus Θ(n)), we explore whether an analogous separation exists for secure protocols; namely, if there exist techniques for performing secure merge that are more performant than simply invoking secure sort. We answer this question affirmatively by constructing a secure merge protocol with optimal Θ(n) communication and computation, and Θ(log log n) rounds of communication. Our results are based solely on black-box use of basic secure primitives, such as secure comparison and secure shuffle. Since two-party secure primitives require computational assumptions, while three-party do not, our protocols achieve these bounds against semi-honest adversaries via a computationally secure two-party (resp. an information-theoretically secure three-party) secure merge protocol. Secure sort is a fundamental building block used in many MPC protocols, e.g., various private set intersection protocols and oblivious RAM protocols. More efficient secure sort can lead to concrete improvements in the overall run-time. Since secure sort can often be replaced by secure merge - as inputs (from different participating players) can be presorted - an efficient secure merge protocol has wide applicability. There are also a range of applications in the field of secure databases, including secure database joins, as well as updatable database storage and search, whereby secure merge can be used to insert new entries into an existing (sorted) database. In building our secure merge protocol, we develop several subprotocols that may be of independent interest. For example, we develop a protocol for secure asymmetric merge (when one list is much larger than the other).

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Mark Blunk, Paul Bunn, Samuel Dittmer, Steve Lu, and Rafail Ostrovsky. Linear-Time Secure Merge in O(loglog n) Rounds. In 6th Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 343, pp. 7:1-7:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{blunk_et_al:LIPIcs.ITC.2025.7,
  author =	{Blunk, Mark and Bunn, Paul and Dittmer, Samuel and Lu, Steve and Ostrovsky, Rafail},
  title =	{{Linear-Time Secure Merge in O(loglog n) Rounds}},
  booktitle =	{6th Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2025)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-385-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{343},
  editor =	{Gilboa, Niv},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITC.2025.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-243573},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITC.2025.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Secure Merge, Secure Sort, Secure Databases, Private Set Intersection}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITC.2021.5

Line-Point Zero Knowledge and Its Applications

Authors: Samuel Dittmer, Yuval Ishai, and Rafail Ostrovsky

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 199, 2nd Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2021)

Abstract

We introduce and study a simple kind of proof system called line-point zero knowledge (LPZK). In an LPZK proof, the prover encodes the witness as an affine line 𝐯(t) : = at + 𝐛 in a vector space 𝔽ⁿ, and the verifier queries the line at a single random point t = α. LPZK is motivated by recent practical protocols for vector oblivious linear evaluation (VOLE), which can be used to compile LPZK proof systems into lightweight designated-verifier NIZK protocols. We construct LPZK systems for proving satisfiability of arithmetic circuits with attractive efficiency features. These give rise to designated-verifier NIZK protocols that require only 2-5 times the computation of evaluating the circuit in the clear (following an input-independent preprocessing phase), and where the prover communicates roughly 2 field elements per multiplication gate, or roughly 1 element in the random oracle model with a modestly higher computation cost. On the theoretical side, our LPZK systems give rise to the first linear interactive proofs (Bitansky et al., TCC 2013) that are zero knowledge against a malicious verifier. We then apply LPZK towards simplifying and improving recent constructions of reusable non-interactive secure computation (NISC) from VOLE (Chase et al., Crypto 2019). As an application, we give concretely efficient and reusable NISC protocols over VOLE for bounded inner product, where the sender’s input vector should have a bounded L₂-norm.

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Samuel Dittmer, Yuval Ishai, and Rafail Ostrovsky. Line-Point Zero Knowledge and Its Applications. In 2nd Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 199, pp. 5:1-5:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)

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@InProceedings{dittmer_et_al:LIPIcs.ITC.2021.5,
  author =	{Dittmer, Samuel and Ishai, Yuval and Ostrovsky, Rafail},
  title =	{{Line-Point Zero Knowledge and Its Applications}},
  booktitle =	{2nd Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2021)},
  pages =	{5:1--5:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-197-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{199},
  editor =	{Tessaro, Stefano},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITC.2021.5},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-143249},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITC.2021.5},
  annote =	{Keywords: Zero-knowledge proofs, NIZK, correlated randomness, vector oblivious linear evaluation, non-interactive secure computation}
}

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Documents authored by Dittmer, Samuel

Linear-Time Secure Merge in O(loglog n) Rounds

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Line-Point Zero Knowledge and Its Applications

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