The Random Oracle Model's Achilles' Heel: New Challenges to Blockchain Security
This post delves into a long-standing issue in cryptography: the Random Oracle Model (ROM). Widely used to prove the security of cryptographic schemes, ROM's assumptions are unrealizable in the real world. The author analyzes a paper by Khovratovich, Rothblum, and Soukhanov, revealing potential practical attacks on Fiat-Shamir based zero-knowledge proof systems. These attacks exploit vulnerabilities that can arise when replacing the ROM with real-world hash functions. As zero-knowledge proofs and their recursive applications in blockchain become more prevalent, the author highlights the significant security risks, potentially leading to system-wide failures. The post emphasizes the crucial need for rigorous security audits of programs used in proof systems and explores various attack scenarios, ranging from relatively mild to catastrophic, prompting a deeper examination of blockchain security.