Unique NIZKs and Steganography Detection
摘要
Non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) proofs tend to be randomized and there are many possible proofs for any fixed NP statement. Can we have NIZKs with only a single unique valid proof per statement? Such NIZKs are known under strong cryptographic assumptions (indistinguishability obfuscation), and are conversely known to require strong cryptographic assumptions (witness encryption). In this work, following Lepinski, Micali, and shelat (TCC ’05), we consider the following relaxed notion of unique NIZKs (UNIZKs): We show that both of these relaxations are needed to avoid witness encryption. Prior work constructed such UNIZKs under the quadratic residuosity assumption, and it remained an open problem to do so under any other assumptions. Here, we give a new construction of UNIZKs under the learning with errors (LWE) assumption. We also identify and fix a subtle circularity issue in the prior work. UNIZKs are a non-interactive version of steganography-free zero knowledge of Abdolmaleki et al. (TCC ’22). As an application of UNIZKs, we get a general steganography detection mechanism that can passively monitor arbitrary functionalities to detect steganographic leakage.