Logs for the Monero Research Lab Meeting Held on 2019-05-06
May 06, 2019
Logs
<sarang> OK, let's begin
<sarang> ping suraeNoether et al.
<sarang> First on the agenda, GREETINGS
<sarang> hello
<sgp_> hello
<sarang> I'll wait a couple of minutes to see if others join
<suraeNoether> hey guys
<suraeNoether> thank you for your patience
<sarang> Since suraeNoether went first last time, I'll go first in the ROUNDTABLE
<sarang> the DLSAG signature paper has been submitted to a conference in a short form, and the IACR preprint is forthcoming
<sarang> Thanks to our coauthors for their excellent work on this
<sarang> The submission process is arduous and irritating
<sarang> Zcoin published an intriguing Zerocoin protocol flaw recently: https://zcoin.io/cryptographic-description-of-zerocoin-attack/
<sarang> Sooooo we won't be switching to Zerocoin anytime soon!
<sarang> My monthly report is available on CCS: https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/merge_requests/34#note_5903
<suraeNoether> is there an issue with DLSAG key images that will impact the publication process?
<sarang> I updated the CLSAG protocol code to reflect key prefixing, which had been left out mistakenly
<sarang> Doubtful
<sarang> It's an interesting construction regardless
<sarang> moneromooo asked about doing a CLSAG key image offset (like we do in BPs) to save time while avoiding subgroup issues
<sarang> Doing so would save ~315 us per signature on my test machine
<sarang> But it was also noted that there could easily be room for error depending on implementation
<sarang> Note that the CLSAG test code already performs this offset on the auxiliary key image, but this isn't used for linking anyway
<sarang> I had also been interested in BP generalizations to arbitrary input lengths
<sarang> I have code for it: https://github.com/SarangNoether/skunkworks/tree/pybullet-np2
<sarang> Unfortunately this requires the verifier to compute all inner product rounds and loses computational efficiency
<sarang> It may be possible to modify the algorithm to do the single-round version, but it is not clear to me how to do so cleanly
<sarang> Currently, I'm working on updating some formal definitions for suraeNoether for CLSAG, and have been doing some code and timing tests for a paper that was presented to me
<sarang> Any particular questions on this work?
<suraeNoether> just curious when you sleep :D
<sarang> lol
<sarang> Go ahead, suraeNoether !
<suraeNoether> my update is shorter: unforgeability proof for CLSAG is nearly complete, but I'm holding off on continuing to write on this before I get some comments back from sarang. some of my protocols as described have a few mismatches with our current approaches, and I don't want to write proofs for the wrong protocols.
<suraeNoether> i'm working on my talk for the magical crypto conference (i'm leaving tomorrow for that and I'll be back home on sunday)
<sarang> Well, they'd be correct for our implementation AFAICT, but not for a neat generalization you were working on
<suraeNoether> oh! well, still
<suraeNoether> since the proofs will be for the general case
<sarang> Right
<suraeNoether> anyway, i'm also trying to solve a problem with the dlsag key images that I thought had been solved, and I'm continuing to review a semi-secret paper for a colleague
<suraeNoether> (the last semi-secret paper ended up being DLSAG, which is the groundwork for monero lightning, so y'all know if we're keeping it semi-secret it's pretty neato burrito)
<dEBRUYNE> Is that semi-secrit paper related to Monero?
<suraeNoether> my action items for today involve a breaking monero episode, further DLSAG research, further semi-secret research, and writing my MCC talk
<suraeNoether> dEBRUYNE: yes
<dEBRUYNE> Cool
<suraeNoether> but i can't go further yet
<sgp_> when is the earliest you expect to switch back to the bipartite graph paper?
<suraeNoether> in being public about the contents, I mean
<suraeNoether> sgp_: thank you for reminding me about that, this is an ongoing project, sgp_, and I've been putting in work regularly on that paper to try to get my simulations working appropriately.
<suraeNoether> actually putting work regularly into the simulations, because the paper is on hold until the sims are done
<suraeNoether> sarang and I are trading some projects back and forth; when i hand him clsag or dlsag, i work on MRL11 until he hands me something back, and it's like the tides
<suraeNoether> :P
<suraeNoether> i don't have a good timeline on completing it and getting results, however
<sgp_> All I'm doing is making sure is that it doesn't fall by the wayside. There are a million things to do, I just want to make sure this remains in the top 3
<suraeNoether> ^ absolutely
<suraeNoether> i'll make a little descriptive blurb and make a link to it here later today so that people can see the current state of the thing
<sarang> perfect
<sarang> Any other questions for suraeNoether ?
<suraeNoether> i want to ensure that folks in the community are aware of the progress on each of these projects, and we definitely have a *lot* of projects/spinning plates
<sarang> If anyone else has relevant research to present, now is a great time
<sgp_> none from me. looking forward to seeing the MCC recording/slides
<sarang> As am I
<sarang> Ok, how about ACTION ITEMS
<sarang> I'll be rewriting some definitions today to streamline suraeNoether's CLSAG generalization for the proofs
<sarang> Finishing up that timing data I mentioned earlier
<sarang> getting another couple of Breaking Monero out the door
<sarang> Reviewing some output selection stuff
<sarang> etc.
<sarang> Others?
<suraeNoether> I mentioned mine already
<sarang> that you did
<suraeNoether> and sgp_ reminded me to re-add matching to my list
<suraeNoether> does anyone have any questions about konferenco or complaints or more action items to be added to the list of stuff to do for the research conference?
<suraeNoether> i'm asking this because sgp_ just reminded me how human and fallible my memory is for big lists of stuff to do :D
<sarang> The speaking agenda for the conference is all set?
<suraeNoether> yep, i believe i'm waiting on two TBA titles. i need to add two sponsors to our list, Tari and Symas
<sarang> I'm excited to speak and serve as panel moderator
<suraeNoether> those sponsors are on the t-shirt design, but not the website
<suraeNoether> oh man that's going to be a good panel
<suraeNoether> i'm anticipating pretty rough questions for Voorhees and Gavigan actually
<sarang> FYI questions for the panel will be submitted by the audience and then selected by moderators
<sarang> to ensure quality and avoid the inevitable "a few follow-up questions…"
<sarang> Since we have time, here's an open question… now that the next point release is being finalized, any thoughts from the room about desired changes for the next network upgrade?
<suraeNoether> ^ i'm curious about this a lot
<suraeNoether> the other day sarang asked me what i want to see in the next upgrade
<sgp_> another ringsize revisit. 2 output min. payment ID stuff
<suraeNoether> the next big change i want to see is CLSAG, since it'll be basically cutting our blockchain rate of growth by half
<sarang> 25%
<suraeNoether> but 2-out min and deprecating pay_id is on my list also
<sarang> ish
<suraeNoether> oh yeah there are some constants
<sgp_> any chance for dandelion++? I don't know how long this would take
<sarang> Probably not by fall, but it's not consensus
<sarang> any client release could do it
<sgp_> right, jut curious
<sgp_> are you anticipating any work on your end for RandomX? code is frozen and needs to be reviewed
<suraeNoether> i heard a rumor that tari is looking into ristretto and monero's protocol
<suraeNoether> i'm thinking we should invite someone from tari to give us an update on that for the meeting after next or something like that
<sarang> sgp_: I'm working with hyc to solicit statements of work from reviewers
<sarang> We have 4 interested firms
<sgp_> great!
<sarang> Once we get publicly-releasable statements we can put them on GitHub
<sgp_> do you expect those within the month?
<sarang> yes
<suraeNoether> i'm very excited about that
<suraeNoether> are the firms all auditing firms? should we consider trying to bring in a hardware firm to assess that end of the implementation?
<suraeNoether> like, code-auditing i mean
<sarang> We're getting reviewers with backgrounds in hardware design
<sarang> It's tough because at some level "can this be built into hardware efficiently" is answered by designing such hardware
<sarang> Part of the process will be getting feedback on which reviewers' experience aligns most closely with our goals
<suraeNoether> fair nuff
<sgp_> I don't have any other consensus-related questions and comments
<sarang> Anyone else have any?
<sarang> Righto!
<sarang> In that case, thanks to everyone for participating today. Logs will be posted shortly to the GitHub agenda issue
<sgp_> I have a really quick announcement
<sarang> sure
<sgp_> If you are interested in speaking, running a workshop, and/or volunteering at the Monero Village at Defcon in August, please fill out the CFP by June 3: http://monerovillage.org
<sgp_> We already have some good submissions
<sgp_> (done)
<sarang> When https?
<sgp_> whenever rehrar gets the time
<sarang> :D
<sarang> OK, we are now adjourned
Post tags : Dev Diaries, Cryptography, Monero Research Lab