Logs for the Monero Research Lab Meeting Held on 2018-03-26
March 26, 2018
Logs
<suraeNoether> Sarang is apparently en route from an airport and is not expected to make it for the meeting. So today i'll just babble a bit
<suraeNoether> and answer questions
<rehrar> Remind me, was he presenting at that Blockchain conference?
<suraeNoether> yes, that's why he's en route from the airport
<suraeNoether> he took it upon himself to disabuse some folks of some certain notions about hashgraph
<suraeNoether> which I think is neat
<suraeNoether> specifically, he's been reading a lot about graph-based currencies, and someone gave a rather misleading presentation, but Sarang's presentation (I believe) preceded it and it was an educational moment
<suraeNoether> but I shouldn't speak for him, I wasn't there. the conference organizers flew him out to give a presentation on behalf of MRL and I have confidence he did a great job representing us
<rehrar> Will it be posted online?
<suraeNoether> he can answer that later today. I don't know.
<rehrar> ok, thanks
<suraeNoether> So, before we proceed, does anyone have any other general questions for MRL?
<sgp_[m]> Sorry I'm here but mostly distracted by class. Looking forward to hopefully viewing the presentation online
<suraeNoether> ok, neato burrito. So, basically this week I've 1) been putting some copy-editing changes into the multisig paper like spelling and references 2) working on models of the spend-time distributions vs. ring mixin selection distributions, and 3) while driving between albuquerque and denver, I think I came up with a novel ECC signature scheme from one-way functions (staring into the desert sun), but I'm not
<suraeNoether> putting a lot of effort into that until I have more of a handle on spend-time distributions
<suraeNoether> I've also 4) been building the MRL Research Roadmap for 2018. I need to discuss with sarang, but I think we'll be putting that out mid-May, because we want to have a complete look at what's going on
<suraeNoether> uhm, also I've spent an enormous amount of time this week on a certain project for MRL related to churning and the EAE scenario. details to come later on
<hyc> sounds cool
<rehrar> if hyc thinks it's cool, then it's cool
<suraeNoether> hyc and I have been chatting about an asic-unfriendly POW expansion, also
<sgp_[m]> I'm highly looking forward to seeing your work with EAE
<hyc> yes and I'm now digging back into the bulletproofs paper to try to get more solid understanding
<suraeNoether> namely, if instead of a POW game like: find nonce x such that H(block || x) * difficulty < target…. we can run a POW game like: find a nonce x such that, for a random bit of javascript J(x) that is loop-free, H(block || J(x))*difficulty < target
<suraeNoether> this was the idea hyc originally brought to my attention, but verification requires executing the code, so I was thinking instead it could be a random arithmetic circuit instead. then you can present bulletproofs that you know the nonce x such that H(block || AC(x))*difficulty < target efficiently
<rehrar> oh yeah, I remember you guys discussing something like that. Just to clarify for me cuz it was a bit confusing at the time. The idea is that CPUs and GPUs compile code better than ASICs would, correct?
<hyc> compile and execute
<suraeNoether> the idea is that if the code is random, then an asic will presumably not even be able to compile the code, let alone execute it, but a cpu is built to deal with arbitrary code
<suraeNoether> maybe this is a bad analogy, but I think of an ASIC as a big manufacturing factory, fully automated. it makes lemon cakes. the random code you just spit out asked for a rotisserie chicken
<rehrar> making it so that an ASIC would have to be built with a CPU, which defeats the purpose because might as well have a computer at that point, right?
<hyc> that's the general idea yes
<rehrar> great, I understand now. Thank you for explaining. :)
<suraeNoether> yeah, it shifts the bottleneck away from the highly asic'able hash to finding the nonce for the hash, kinda
<suraeNoether> which is quite clever
<endogenic> hack the planet!
<rehrar> if this idea pans out, we can even do some looking into seeing if the random stuff can do something useful as well?
<hyc> useful?
<rehrar> never mind, this is something I know too little about. Sorry. Plz continue.
<hyc> the code must be highly random and unpredictable
<hyc> if it does something useful, that can be ASIC'd
<endogenic> rehrar: use the heat to warm your chickens
<hyc> there ya go
<rehrar> can the chickens consume the arbitrary code?
<ArticMine> The random code can provide space heating and in many parts of the world that is useful
<suraeNoether> does anyone have any other questions? i can sketch out my new signature scheme if folks are curious, but it'd be more of an algebra discussion. :D
<ArticMine> Sure
<suraeNoether> Cool. So, definition: a cartesian square of groups is a set of four groups and four group homomorphisms arranged in a square satisfying *one weird property*
<suraeNoether> https://www.irccloud.com/pastebin/XXZjHHp0/
<suraeNoether> So the square looks like this
<suraeNoether> and the property is this: if group elements from B and C end up *at the same element* in D, then they must have *come from* the same element in A
<endogenic> scientists hate it!
<suraeNoether> denoting the top map f, the left map g, the rihgt map h, the bottom map j, this means: if there exist some b in B and c in C such that j(c) = h(b), then there exists some a in A such that b = f(a) and c = g(a)
<suraeNoether> so I'm going to set A to be my private key group Zq, and D to be my public key group G
<suraeNoether> and i'll just assume the middle groups B and C are also equal to my public key group
<suraeNoether> then a message M can give me a signature this way: from M, build a one-way map from Zq (private keys) to G (signatures) called SIGN and a one-way map from G (signatures) to G (public keys) called VER
<suraeNoether> to sign the message, I evaluate my private key SIGN(x) and get a group element, my signature. To validate this game from me, I evaluate VER at my signature and check that the result is my public key, VER(SIGN(x)) = X
<suraeNoether> so my signature is SIGN(x) and the function VER
<suraeNoether> each message M has a different pair of one-way functions SIGN and VER
<suraeNoether> to forge this, I need to find a group element S such that VER(S) = VER(SIGN(x)) for someone's honestly computed SIGN(x), but that requires breaking the one-way-ness of all the arrows in my square
<suraeNoether> *this is all great in theory, but i have no implementation yet. :P*
<suraeNoether> oh, i missed a word: in the definition of the cartesian square, the diagram has to be commutative. so if I traverse from A to D along one path (through B), I get the same result as if I had traversed the other path (through C)
<suraeNoether> and that is *critical*
<suraeNoether> so, to construct an implementation, I need a way to map from message space to the space of one-way group homomorphisms to get SIGN and VER, and then I need to mod out by the ideal generated by all the functions that don't satisfy the cartesian property
<suraeNoether> more recently cartesian squares (mid-late 20th century terminology) have been called "pullback diagrams," and I haven't found any descritpions in the literature of EC-based digital signatures based on them
<suraeNoether> that doesn't mean that this is a novel signature scheme, only that I haven't found any old references to them. I'm emailing around asking folks, and if anyone comes across anything, please let me know
<suraeNoether> to forge this… <— also, i need to find a message M such that VER is the one-way function derived from M to compute a forgery
<suraeNoether> okay, abstract algebra/category theory lecture done. :P hehe
<hyc> whew ;)
<suraeNoether> ikr what a blowhard
<suraeNoether> also s/game/came
<hyc> I think I missed a part, can you explain again the bit after "now listen carefully" ?
<suraeNoether> "i think a few pages back, you missed a negative and the error propagates. I would have said something, but you were so excited about proving P=NP"
<hyc> lol
<suraeNoether> does anyone have any questions for MRL? I believe sarang is going to be posting another FFS to fund the third audit later today or something?
<rehrar> how much extra is going to be needed?
<rehrar> and did we sign off on anyone getting started already?
<suraeNoether> rehrar I don't know, and I don't know. i believe nioc was encouraging us to not worry about getting it funded and to just post it so we can get the process moving, but I don't want to speak for him.
<rehrar> got it
<suraeNoether> and sarang will be back later today to talk about that
<suraeNoether> days like today, i want to hire a suresh noether
<suraeNoether> okay, next meeting, I want to talk about planning the first monero conference, and planning travel for sarang and i to other conferences between now and then
<suraeNoether> i'm actually attending a bitcoin/blockchain event on april 25 in denver at one of the venues i'm looking at for the monero conference
<suraeNoether> and I have a few meetings next week about it too
<suraeNoether> other than that, I got nothing left to chat about
<nioc> rehrar: I believe Bunz and QuarksLab have already been signed
<suraeNoether> i also want to chat next week about how is everyone satisfied with MRL. I want to gauge the community on direction, depth, breadth, leadership, funding models/goals etc.
<rehrar> cool, thanks nioc
<suraeNoether> so, with that, i want folks to think about what you would say to me if you had me face-to-face. :D
<rehrar> oy, I need to talk with the two of you fairly soon. It's already Revuo time again.
<suraeNoether> rehrar i believe i'm dragging sarang out to denver for that blockchain event. make it up here around that time and maybe we can make it a MAGIC board member meeting + revuo intervuo.
<suraeNoether> we'll drag mike from the moneromonitor by. :P it'll be historic~
<suraeNoether> </meeting>
Post tags : Dev Diaries, Cryptography, Monero Research Lab