Philipp Schindler (SBA Research) will present our new paper at NDSS 2021 this year!
RandRunner: Distributed Randomness from Trapdoor VDFs with Strong Uniqueness
Philipp Schindler, Aljosha Judmayer, and Markus Hittmeir (SBA Research); Nicholas Stifter (SBA Research, TU Wien); Edgar Weippl (SBA Research, Universität Wien)
Generating randomness collectively has been a long standing problem in distributed computing. It plays a critical role not only in the design of state-of-the-art Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) and blockchain protocols, but also for a range of applications far beyond this field. We present RandRunner, a random beacon protocol with a unique set of guarantees that targets a realistic system model. Our design avoids the necessity of a (BFT) consensus protocol and its accompanying high complexity and communication overhead. We achieve this by introducing a novel extension to verifiable delay functions (VDFs) in the RSA setting that does not require a trusted dealer or distributed key generation (DKG) and only relies on well studied cryptographic assumptions. This design allows RandRunner to tolerate adversarial or failed leaders while guaranteeing safety and liveness of the protocol despite possible periods of asynchrony.
Speaker
- Philipp Schindler (SBA Research)
About the Conference
The Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS) is a top venue that fosters information exchange among researchers and practitioners of computer, network and distributed system security. The target audience includes those interested in practical aspects of network and distributed system security, with a focus on actual system design and implementation. A major goal is to encourage and enable the Internet community to apply, deploy, and advance the state of practical security technologies.
Conference Program
Check out the full program here.