Giving State to the Stateless: Augmenting Trustworthy Computation with Ledgers

By Gabriel Kaptchuk, Matthew D. Green, Ian Miers. 2019

61 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this work we investigate new computational properties that can be achieved by combining stateless trusted devices with public ledgers. We consider a hybrid paradigm in which a client-side device (such as a co-processor or trusted enclave) performs secure computation, while interacting with a public ledger via a possibly malicious host computer. We explore both the constructive and potentially destructive implications of such systems. We first show that this combination allows for the construction of stateful interactive functionalities (including general computation) even when the device has no persistent storage; this allows us to build sophisticated applications using inexpensive trusted hardware or even pure cryptographic obfuscation techniques. We further show how to use this paradigm to achieve censorship-resistant communication with a network, even when network communications are mediated by a potentially malicious host. Finally we describe a number of practical applications that can be achieved today. These include the synchronization of private smart contracts; rate limited mandatory logging; strong encrypted backups from weak passwords; enforcing fairness in multi-party computation; and destructive applications such as autonomous ransomware, which allows for payments without an online party.

Subfields: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Information Systems

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

In Information Systems

Citations in the corpus

Ekiden: A Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contracts (2018, neutral): “establish “proofs of publication,” as coined by [40].”
The Ekiden Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contracts (2020, background): “Thus, although it is tempting to use a blockchain to checkpoint a TEE’s state (see, e.g., Kaptchuk et al. 10 ), the lack of a reliable timer renders it tricky for a TEE to ascertain an up-to-date view of the blockchain.”
Private Data Objects: an Overview (2018, methodology): “ELI [10] proposes a technique based on an abstract distributed ledger to implement stateful functionalities for otherwise stateless enclaves.”