Philipp Schindler (SBA Research), Aljosha Judmayer (SBA Research), Markus Hittmeir (SBA Research), Nicholas Stifter (SBA Research, TU Wien), Edgar Weippl (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.

View More Papers

Google/Apple Exposure Notification Due Diligence

Douglas Leith and Stephen Farrell (Trinity College Dublin)

Read More

Improving Signal's Sealed Sender

Ian Martiny (University of Colorado Boulder), Gabriel Kaptchuk (Boston University), Adam Aviv (The George Washington University), Dan Roche (U.S. Naval Avademy), Eric Wustrow (University of Colorado Boulder)

Read More

Zoom on the Keystrokes: Exploiting Video Calls for Keystroke...

Mohd Sabra (University of Texas at San Antonio), Anindya Maiti (University of Oklahoma), Murtuza Jadliwala (University of Texas at San Antonio)

Read More

Denial-of-Service Attacks on C-V2X Networks

Natasa Trkulja, David Starobinski (Boston University), and Randall Berry (Northwestern University)

Read More