Progressive verification for cryptographic schemes

Cryptographic verification mechanisms play a central role in securing digital services. Standard verification algorithms return accept/reject only at the very end of the execution.

Thus, it is not possible to dynamically adjust the the verification and trade some security for quicker executions or lower computational complexity.

This is, however, a very crucial feature that would bridge the existing gap between the resources of current low-end computing devices and the storage/computational demands imposed by the latest and highest cryptographic standards.

Progressive verification aims at devising altrenative procedures that reach the same outcome as standard verification but build confidence on the validity of an input in a gradual way.

Comparing progressive and standard verification, we expect no false negatives (correctness), and the rate of false positives be proportional to the amount of resources invested by the verifier (security).

This project aims at devising a rigorous framework for progressive verification of cryptographic schemes including digital signatures, proof systems and verifiable computation.

We will introduce syntax and formal requirements for progessive verification of each cryptographic primitive considered; investigate realistic attacker models; deliver generic transformations that yield provably secure progressive verification for families of schemes; and, finally, develop and open source library for widespread adoption of our best candidates.