Zkfhed: A Verifiable and Scalable Blockchain-Enhanced Federated Learning System

Abstract

Federated learning (FL) is an emerging paradigm that enables multiple clients to collaboratively train a machine learning (ML) model without the need to exchange their raw data. However, it relies on a centralized authority to coordinate participants’ activities. This not only interrupts the entire training task in case of a single point of failure, but also lacks an effective regulatory mechanism to prevent malicious behavior. Although blockchain, with its decentralized architecture and data immutability, has significantly advanced the development of FL, it still struggles to withstand poisoning attacks and faces limitations in computational scalability. We propose Zkfhed, a verifiable and scalable FL system that overcomes the limitations of blockchain-based FL in poison attacks and computational scalability. First, we propose a two-stage audit scheme based on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), which verifies that the training data are extracted from trusted organizations and that computations on the data exactly follow the specified training protocols. Second, we propose a homomorphic encryption delegation learning (HEDL), based on fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). It is capable of outsourcing complex computing to external computing resources without sacrificing the client's data privacy. Final, extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that Zkfhed can effectively identify malicious clients and is highly efficient and scalable in terms of online time and communication efficiency.