Cryptographic Accumulators: New Definitions, Enhanced Security, and Delegatable Proofs

Cryptographic accumulators, introduced in 1993 by Benaloh and De Mare, represent a set with a concise value and offer proofs of (non-)membership. Accumulators have evolved, becoming essential in anonymous credentials, e-cash, and blockchain applications. Various properties like dynamic and universal emerged for specific needs, leading to multiple accumulator definitions. In 2015, Derler, Hanser, and Slamanig proposed a unified model, but new properties, including zero-knowledge security, have arisen since. We offer a new definition of accumulators, based on Derler et al.’s, that is suitable for all properties. We also introduce a new security property, unforgeability of private evaluation, to protect accumulator from forgery and we verify this property in Barthoulot, Blazy, and Canard’s recent accumulator. Finally we provide discussions on security properties of accumulators and on the delegatable (non-)membership proofs property.