A practical scheme for non-interactive verifiable secret sharing

Abstract

This paper presents an extremely efficient, non-interactive protocol for verifiable secret sharing. Verifiable secret sharing (VSS) is a way of bequeathing information to a set of processors such that a quorum of processors is needed to access the information. VSS is a fundamental tool of cryptography and distributed computing. Seemingly difficult problems such as secret bidding, fair voting, leader election, and flipping a fair coin have simple one-round reductions to VSS. There is a constant-round reduction from Byzantine Agreement to non-interactive VSS. Non-interactive VSS provides asynchronous networks with a constant-round simulation of simultaneous broadcast networks whenever even a bare majority of processors are good. VSS is constantly repeated in the simulation of fault-free protocols by faulty systems. As verifiable secret sharing is a bottleneck for so many results, it is essential to find efficient solutions.