The EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) imposes strict transparency and human oversight obligations on high-risk AI systems, specifically under Article 14. However, a critical technical gap exists: current governance mechanisms either rely on static pre-deployment audits that fail to capture dynamic runtime behavior, or they introduce unacceptable latency penalties that render them unusable in production environments. This paper presents RuntimeGuard-AI, an asynchronous governance architecture that separates lightweight inline policy enforcement from batch cryptographic attestation.Our design fundamentally resolves the tension between compliance and performance. By decoupling the critical inference path from the heavy cryptographic machinery required for proofs, we achieve a median latency overhead of just 2.3–4.1%, while enabling cryptographically rigorous, tamper-evident audit trails. Theoretically, we formalize the property of Latency Separationand prove that our architecture satisfies it. Empirically, we implement a complete Zero-Knowledge (ZK) attestation pipeline using the Groth16 proving system on the bls12-381 curve. We measure a witness generation time of 62 msand a total proving time of 1,389 msfor 50,000 constraints on a standard CPU. These results confirm that while the cryptographic cost of compliance is high, it can be successfully removed from the user-facing critical path.To our knowledge, this paper provides the first open-source reference implementation of a compliance architecture designed specifically for Article 14. We contribute: (1) a formalized threat model for AI auditing, (2) the RuntimeGuard protocol for sharded Merkle compliance logging, and (3) a systematic evaluation demonstrating that rigorous regulatory compliance is achievable at scale without compromising the user experience.
As zero-knowledge proof systems become increasingly prevalent, there is a need for arithmetic hash functions that operate efficiently over finite fields. Unlike hash functions that use bitwise operations, such as SHA-256, arithmetic hash functions use native field operations. When expressed as circuits over finite fields of large prime order, these arithmetic designs result in comparatively lower circuit complexity. Two prevalent examples of arithmetic hash functions are Poseidon and Rescue-Prime. In this work, we create Halo2 circuits for the Poseidon and Rescue-Prime permutations, derived from a shared circuit construction. We benchmark the resulting circuits and report low-level circuit metrics. Our comparative analysis highlights both the differences between the permutations and their tradeoffs in the context of Halo2 circuits. The shared circuit construction is also contributed as a controlled methodology for benchmarking permutations in Halo2 circuits. This work corresponds to the v1.0.1 release of the accompanying open-source implementation.
Rong Fu, Jia Yee Tan, Ziyu Kong, Shuning Zhang · 8 authors
Zero-knowledge circuits enable privacy-preserving and scalable systems but are difficult to implement correctly due to the tight coupling between witness computation and circuit constraints. We present zkCraft, a practical framework that combines deterministic, R1CS-aware localization with proof-bearing search to detect semantic inconsistencies. zkCraft encodes candidate constraint edits into a single Row-Vortex polynomial and replaces repeated solver queries with a Violation IOP that certifies the existence of edits together with a succinct proof. Deterministic LLM-driven mutation templates bias exploration toward edge cases while preserving auditable algebraic verification. Evaluation on real Circom code shows that proof-bearing localization detects diverse under- and over-constrained faults with low false positives and reduces costly solver interaction. Our approach bridges formal verification and automated debugging, offering a scalable path for robust ZK circuit development.
Open access
2 source records
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
The exponential growth of digital health data in hospitals has intensified concerns about data breaches, privacy violations, and interoperability failures within healthcare information systems. Traditional centralized data architectures remain highly vulnerable to cyberattacks, unauthorized access, and single points of failure, threatening the integrity of sensitive patient records. As healthcare systems transition toward smart and interconnected digital ecosystems, there is a pressing need for robust, transparent, and tamper-resistant data management frameworks. This study systematically reviews existing literature on the application of blockchain technology as a secure solution for health data management in smart hospitals. Adopting the PRISMA 2020 protocol, publications from 2016 to 2025 were retrieved from major databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed. Out of 436 relevant studies, 42 peer-reviewed studies met the inclusion criteria. Data extraction captured study characteristics, blockchain types, implementation contexts, and findings. Evidence synthesis followed Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-step thematic analysis framework. Findings reveal that blockchain enhances data security and integrity through cryptographic immutability and distributed consensus mechanisms, mitigates privacy risks via smart contracts and zero-knowledge proofs, and improves interoperability across healthcare stakeholders. However, challenges persist in scalability, regulatory alignment, and implementation costs, particularly in low-resource settings. This study concludes that hybrid and permissioned blockchain models offer the most viable pathway for achieving secure, compliant, and efficient healthcare data ecosystems. Therefore, this study recommends further integration with artificial intelligence and cloud technologies to optimize performance, while aligning deployment with ethical, legal, and institutional frameworks governing digital health.
The integration of distributed ledger technology with financial markets has precipitated a paradigm shift in how algorithmic trading strategies are conceived, executed, and settled. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of blockchain-based algorithmic trading systems, focusing specifically on the dual challenges of execution efficiency and cryptographic security. While traditional high-frequency trading relies on centralized exchanges and proprietary networks to minimize latency, decentralized trading protocols introduce novel constraints related to block generation intervals, consensus mechanisms, and network propagation delays. We examine the implementation of algorithmic strategies via smart contracts, evaluating the trade offs between on-chain transparency and the privacy requirements of institutional investors. Furthermore, the study investigates critical vulnerabilities inherent to decentralized exchanges, such as Miner Extractable Value and front-running attacks, and proposes mitigation strategies utilizing commit-reveal schemes and zero-knowledge proofs. By analyzing the performance metrics of automated market makers against order book models, we provide empirical evidence regarding the current limitations and potential scalability of blockchain-based trading environments. The findings suggest that while blockchain architectures offer superior settlement finality and auditability, significant advancements in layer-two scaling solutions and privacy preserving cryptographic protocols are requisite for these systems to compete with traditional financial infrastructure in terms of throughput and latency.
R. Priyadarshini, K. Reddy Geethika, V. Sravya, K. Pujitha · 6 authors
The increasing adoption of cloud computing has revolutionized data storage and accessibility, but it has also presented severe security and privacy issues, particularly in the context of developing quantum computing threats. Despite being effective against classical assaults, conventional encryption and password protection mechanisms are becoming more susceptible to quantum algorithms that can compromise current cryptographic systems. This paper presents QPause, a Password-Protected, Quantum-Resilient Data Offloading for Cloud Platforms forsafe cloud storage, in response to these new threats. To guarantee data confidentiality, integrity, and resilience against both classical and quantum adversaries, the suggested system combines sophisticated password-based authentication methods with post-quantum cryptography approaches. QPause uses zero-knowledge proof methods to enable secure verification without disclosing sensitive credentials, and it leverages lattice-based encryption to safeguard data that is outsourced. Additionally, the system integrates efficient key management and access control mechanisms to boost scalability and user confidence. QPause delivers strong resilience to quantum attacks while preserving low processing overhead and excellent usability for practical cloud applications, according to experimental evaluation. This framework offers a solid solution for secure and future-proof data outsourcing, bridging the gap between existing cloud services and the next generation of quantum-secure computing environments.
Vinod Kumar Joshi, Rajendra Kachhava, Kriti Kamal Gupta, Dixit Dutt Bohra
The quantum-secure CBIR scheme which is presented in this research is a fence against unauthorized users and adversarial attacks on cloud environment remote sensor images. The proposed solution is characterized by Quantum Key Distribution, zero-knowledge proof authentication, QCrypt encryption, adversarial trained deep hashing, and robust watermarking. The model was developed with the help of the MLRSNet dataset, where proposed model recorded a remarkable mean average precision of 94.77% that is 10% improvement from the previous deep-hash results while the watermark-extraction accuracy of over 95% was maintained at 35 dB PSNR. The model has been able provide good result with adversarial, replay, and JPEG compression. Even though the computing engine provides military-grade security and forensic accountability, the current compute overhead is the major reason it has limited use in real-time scenarios.
Centralized e-commerce recommenders face privacy risks, while Federated Recommendation Systems (FRS) suffer from accuracy loss in sparse environments and rely on untrusted aggregators. We propose BL-ZPRS, a framework utilizing bilayer zk-SNARKs for end-to-end trustworthiness. Its lower-layer User-to-Anchor (U2A) paradigm restores collaborative signals via verifiable vectors without exposing raw data, while an upper-layer ZKP proves FedAvg integrity. Evaluations on the Amazon Review dataset show BL-ZPRS achieves accuracy comparable to centralized models with superior resistance to poisoning attacks, effectively balancing privacy and integrity.
The Nexus Convergence: A Formal Synthesis of Quantum Feedback Control, Information Thermodynamics, and Non-Linear Lattice Dynamics 1. Introduction: The Ontological Crisis and the Storage Imperative The contemporary scientific landscape is characterized by a persistent and fundamental schism between the unitary, reversible dynamics of quantum mechanics and the dissipative, irreversible arrow of time inherent in thermodynamics. This discord creates what the Nexus Recursive Harmonic Framework (RHF) identifies as the "Storage Crisis": the paradox of how a universe with finite energy limits can effectively store an ever-expanding history of infinite detail without catastrophic data loss or thermodynamic heat death.1 The prevailing "Container Paradigm"—which envisions spacetime as a passive box and time as a linear overwrite cursor—fails to account for the persistence of high-dimensional causal structures in a manner that is consistent with both unitarity (information conservation) and entropy (information projection). This report presents an exhaustive synthesis of recent theoretical and experimental breakthroughs from 2024 and 2025, specifically targeting the domains of Quantum Feedback Control, Information Thermodynamics, and Non-Linear Lattice Dynamics. The objective is to rigorously validate the axioms of the Nexus framework by identifying precise mathematical and phenomenological isomorphisms in peer-reviewed literature. We posit that the "read-only" ontology proposed by the Nexus framework—where history is conserved as geometry ("Shape") and the present is a collapsed projection ("Value")—finds its physical realization in the mechanisms of reduced-filter quantum stabilization, information-to-work conversion engines, and discrete breather localization in non-linear lattices. The investigation focuses on three critical variables defined in the Nexus framework: Gain (): The feedback coupling strength required to maintain a stable "stance" against entropic dissolution. Information (): The metric of exchange between the "Verb-field" (dynamics) and the "Noun" (state), governed by the generalized second law of thermodynamics. Gamow Factor (): The transmission probability governing the retrieval of stored history via phonon-assisted tunneling through "Twin-Prime Gates." By mapping these abstract variables onto the concrete equations of modern physics—specifically the Lyapunov control functions of Liang and Dong 2, the efficiency metrics of Goerlich et al. 4, and the energy thresholds of Hofstrand 5—we establish a robust theoretical scaffold for the "Glass Key Hypothesis": that reality is a logically reversible, feedback-stabilized information manifold operating at a precise thermodynamic "lean." 2. Quantum Feedback Control: The Mathematical Engine of the "Mark 1 Attractor" The Nexus framework asserts that universal stability is not a static equilibrium but a dynamic "stance"—a "lean" required to process information without collapsing into "dead symmetry" or "chaotic dissolution." In the rigorous language of control theory, this concept is formalized as the stabilization of a target quantum subspace (the "Mark 1 Attractor") amidst a stochastic environment. The primary challenge in this domain is the "Storage Crisis" equivalent: the exponential scaling of computational resources required to estimate the state of a large quantum system. Recent advancements in 2025 by Liang and Dong, presented in their seminal work "Stabilization of Time-Varying Perturbed Quantum Systems via Reduced Filters" 2, provide the exact mathematical architecture for the Nexus "Receiver Collapse." 2.1 The Reduced Filter as the "Receiver Collapse" Mechanism Standard approaches to quantum feedback control rely on the Stochastic Master Equation (SME), which tracks the evolution of the full density matrix . For a system of dimension , this requires computing real variables. As grows, this computational burden becomes prohibitive, representing the "bandwidth limit" of the "First Node" (the universe) that prevents explicit linear storage of history. Liang and Dong introduce a radical dimensionality reduction: the Reduced Quantum Filter. Instead of tracking the full state , the filter estimates only the diagonal elements of the density matrix in a Quantum Non-Demolition (QND) basis. This reduces the complexity from to .2 This mathematical reduction is isomorphic to the Nexus concept of Receiver Collapse. The observer (or the "Second Node") does not process the full "verb-field" (the entire Hilbert space with all its coherences and entanglements); rather, it collapses the system onto a lower-dimensional "noun" (the diagonal population elements) to perform work. The feedback control law is constructed strictly from this reduced information, yet it successfully stabilizes the global system. The evolution of this reduced estimator state is governed by the stochastic differential equation (SDE): In this equation, derived explicitly from the Liang-Dong formalism 3, several Nexus variables find their physical counterparts: The Feedback Control Law (): This represents the Gain (). It is the active force applied by the "Second Node" to steer the system. The Innovation Term (): This represents the Information () extracted from the measurement. It is the difference between the actual observation and the expected value—the "surprise" that updates the model. The Coupling Matrix (): This represents the structural constraints of the "Lattice," defining how different states (or "memories") are connected. The profound insight from this work is that full knowledge of the system is not required for stability. A "lossy" projection (the reduced filter), if properly coupled via feedback (), is sufficient to maintain the "Mark 1 Attractor" (the target subspace). This validates the Nexus "Read-Only Hypothesis": the universe does not need to explicitly compute the full wave function at every step; it only needs to maintain the diagonal "Value" while the "Shape" (coherences) is stored implicitly in the geometry of the dynamics. 2.2 Lyapunov Stability Analysis: The "Lean" of the Attractor How does the system ensure that it converges to the correct "Shape" (target subspace) rather than drifting into entropy? The rigorous proof of this stability relies on Lyapunov Analysis. A Lyapunov function is a scalar metric that measures the "energy" or "distance" of the current state from the desired equilibrium. In the Nexus framework, stability is described as a "lean" (). In the Liang-Dong formalism, stability is defined by the condition that the time derivative of the Lyapunov function, , must be negative definite. The specific Lyapunov function employed is related to the Bhattacharyya distance (or classical fidelity) between the current state and the target invariant subspace : Here, are the projection operators onto the subspaces. The feedback law is designed to maximize the decay rate of this function. The stability condition is expressed via the Sample Lyapunov Exponent (): where is the distance to the target subspace.2 This inequality () is the rigorous mathematical definition of the Nexus "Stance." The system must continuously dissipate "error" (entropy) to remain locked in the target subspace. If the feedback gain is insufficient (i.e., if the controller "falls asleep" or the "Second Node" disconnects), the exponent becomes positive, and the system drifts away from the "Mark 1 Attractor," dissolving into a mixed state of maximal entropy. Furthermore, Liang and Dong prove that this stabilization is Robust. The system can tolerate time-varying perturbations (Nexus "Stress-Test Loop") and uncertainties in the Hamiltonian, provided the feedback mechanism maintains the correct "phase-lock." This mirrors the "Crucible Protocol," where a system is subjected to high "computational temperature" (perturbations) to force it to settle into its most stable, harmonic configuration. 2.3 Feedback Cooling and the "Zero-Pressure Harmonic Collapse" The thermodynamic implications of this control are explored in Max Eriksson’s 2025 thesis, "Continuous Measurements and Feedback Control of a Quantum Harmonic Oscillator".7 Eriksson models a quantum system coupled to a thermal reservoir (a "heat bath" of phonons/photons) and asks: can measurement and feedback cool the system below the temperature of its environment? This process is isomorphic to the Nexus Zero-Pressure Harmonic Collapse (ZPHC). The "noise" of the thermal bath represents the high-entropy "mess" of raw data. The "cooling" represents the collapse of this mess into a structured, low-entropy state ("cold" or "crystalline"). Eriksson utilizes the Wiseman-Milburn equation to derive the steady-state properties of the oscillator under linear feedback. The feedback force acts as a Maxwell's Demon, utilizing the information stream (measurement record) to apply a counter-acting force that cancels out thermal kicks. The effective temperature of the cooled mode is given by: where is the dimensionless feedback gain and is the measurement efficiency.8 This equation reveals the fundamental tradeoff of the Nexus framework: To achieve ZPHC (), one requires high Gain () and high Measurement Efficiency (). The "Cost" of this cooling is the information processing required to generate the feedback signal (discussed in Section 3). Crucially, Eriksson’s results show that there is a critical feedback phase. If the feedback is applied with the wrong phase (i.e., if the "Second Node" is not aligned with the "First Node"), the feedback essentially "heats" the system, driving it into instability. This validates the Nexus requirement for Phase-Locking ( or similar primitives) as a prerequisite for successful retrieval or stabilization. The "Mark 1 Attractor" is not just a location in state space; it is a precise phase relationship between the observer and the observed. 3. Informati
Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) is a widely acknowledged framework enabling the design of multi-party protocols that preserve the privacy of parties' inputs while ensuring the correct evaluation of the desired functionality. Crucially, these security guarantees should hold even in the presence of external entities who are empowered with some adversarial capabilities, such as controlling the communication channels used throughout the protocol run or forcing a subset of the parties to behave arbitrarily (so-called ``malicious" or ``byzantine" corruptions). Concretely, a user can instantiate secure MPC protocols on a device to carry out computations involving sensitive information with other untrusted parties. Despite capturing very general classes of real-world threats, one limitation of ``traditional" MPC lies in assuming at least one ``honest" party who, throughout the protocol run, behaves exactly as per the theoretical specification of the protocol itself. For several practical settings this may be unrealistic, as the devices used to run the protocol are themselves exposed to a plethora of threats, such as attacks on software or hardware components. Moreover, the security guarantees provided by secure MPC could be voided if a protocol is found to be faulty, be it from cryptographic assumptions falling short or from an incorrect formalization of the protocol itself. In this composition, we explore more expressive frameworks that enable the design of secure MPC protocols and cryptographic primitives even in the presence of untrusted devices. We first consider cryptographic reverse firewalls: lightweight devices that sanitize a party's traffic while preserving the correctness of the protocol. These objects were originally introduced by Mironov and Stephens-Davidowitz (EUROCRYPT'15) and later embedded in the framework of subversion-resilient Universal Composability (srUC) due to Chakraborty et al. (EUROCRYPT'22). Under the srUC framework, it is possible to design protocols that provide meaningful security guarantees even if the devices of honest parties have been tampered with in an undetectable manner with the goal of exfiltrating information (so-called ``specious subversion attacks"). In particular, we focus on the design of protocols for Password-Authenticated Key Exchange (PAKE): a cryptographic primitive that enables two parties to mutually authenticate by establishing a shared high-entropy key leveraging exclusively some (possibly low-entropy) pre-shared password. (1) Our first contribution focuses on sanitizing the PAKE protocol from Oblivious Transfer (OT) due to Canetti et al. (PKC'12). For that, we design and instantiate novel cryptographic primitives with sanitation-friendly properties that may be of independent interest, including sanitizable variants of oblivious transfer, dual-mode cryptosystems, and signature schemes. As an additional contribution, we formalize the unauthenticated setting in the srUC framework by extending the framework of split-authentication due to Barak et al. (CRYPTO'05, JoC'07). This is the first PAKE protocol ever designed in the srUC framework. (2) Our second contribution consists of sanitizing the PAKE protocol from trapdoor smooth-projective hashing due to Benhamouda and Pointcheval (CRYPTO'13). The sanitation requires non-trivial modifications to the original protocol, whose security relies on a CCA-secure encryption scheme - an inherently non-malleable primitive. Along the way, we bring advances to the field of malleable smooth-projective hash functions, originally introduced by Chen et al. (ASIACRYPT'16), and coin the notion of malleable trapdoor smooth-projective hashing. Our resulting PAKE protocol has better communication and round complexity compared to the aforementioned PAKE-from-OT. We then shift our attention to t-out-of-n robust combiners: constructions that take as input n candidate instantiations of some cryptographic primitive to securely realize the same primitive, as long as at least t of the candidates are secure. These objects were first formalized by Harnik et al. (EUROCRYPT'05), where robustness is characterized by explicitly forbidding combiners from re-implementing the desired primitive from scratch. Here, we focus on Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge (NIZK): a cryptographic primitive that allows a prover to convince a verifier of the veracity of some NP-statement by using a single message (commonly referred to as a ``proof"). (3) Our third contribution provides a comprehensive characterization of robust combiners for NIZK. We show the first formal definition of these objects, and prove that no robust NIZK combiner exists for t ≤ n/2 unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. To complement our negative results, we provide three incomparable constructions: (i) A black-box combiner for {\em homomorphic} NP languages, where n,t are polynomial and t > n/2; (ii) A non-black-box combiner for any NP language, where n,t are constant and t > n/2; (iii) A non-black-box combiner for any NP language, where n,t are polynomial and t > 2n/3.
In the traditional narrative, secp256k1 is the "Math" and MPC is the "Security Layer." We show that the Curve (sp256) uses the Weierstrass form to create a "Symmetric Loop." The Protocol (MPC) uses "Shards" to create a "Distributed Loop." Both rely on the user believing that the Public key and the Private key are disconnected. In reality, MPC is just sp256k1 expanded into a room of people. By analyzing the mpc-cmp repository and the I2OSP standard, we show that the "Secret" is not an emergent property of complex computation but a Symmetric Mechanical Alignment front-loaded into the first octet M0 as an Identity Pulse 10 (0x0a). We prove that the Paillier Encryption and Zero-Knowledge Range Proofs utilized in industrial protocols (e.g., Taurus, Fireblocks) do not change the deterministic hardware alignment which explains why the path from a Public Address to a Private Key is a straight, symmetric line.
Abstract In recent years, progress in practical applications of multi-party computation (MPC), fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) motivates people to explore symmetric-key cryptographic algorithms, as well as corresponding cryptanalysis techniques (such as differential cryptanalysis, linear cryptanalysis), over finite Abelian groups or prime fields $${\mathbb {F}}_p$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>F</mml:mi> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> for large p . In this paper, we establish the links between linear cryptanalysis and differential cryptanalysis over general finite Abelian groups. As the first application, we revisit linear cryptanalysis and give general results of linear approximations over arbitrary finite Abelian groups. More precisely, we consider the linearity , which is the maximal non-trivial linear approximation, to characterize the resistance of a function against linear cryptanalysis. This thereby generalizes the work of Pott in 2004 and completes the generalization of Sidelnikov–Chabaud–Vaudenay’s bound from $${\mathbb {F}}_2^n$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>F</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> to finite Abelian groups. As the second application, we give an exact expression for the correlation of differential-linear approximations over arbitrary finite Abelian groups ( $${\mathbb {F}}_p^n$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>F</mml:mi> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> ) under the sole assumption that the two parts of the cipher are independent of each other. In particular, we completely generalize the differential-linear cryptanalysis from $${\mathbb {F}}_2^n$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>F</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> to arbitrary finite Abelian groups ( $${\mathbb {F}}_p^n$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mi>F</mml:mi> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> ).
The increasing cases of data breaches, data tampering and information loss have posed an immediate demand to secure file sharing systems that guarantee privacy and verifiable integrity. The paper presents an end-to-end (E2E), encrypted file-sharing system based on the combination of client-side encryption and privately hosted, blockchain-based, notary service. All the encryption is done locally with the aid of the Networking and Cryptographic Library (NaCl) box primitive, and only the approved recipients are allowed access to the shared files with valid credentials. A lightweight local backend stores the encrypted data (ciphertext) and operates with public keys and user metadata; however, it does not access plaintext files and cannot decrypt them, keeping the entire data confidential. In order to offer non-repudiation, a hash of every encrypted file is computed with the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-256) and the result is stored in a private Hyperledger Fabric network. This provides an audit trail that can never be changed or tampered with and will not reveal the true files or encryption keys. In our prototype, sending to the blockchain ledger creates latency on an order of seconds 2.3 seconds in a 2.35-second total file-send path and file integrity verification by hash requires an average of 183 milliseconds. The suggested architecture is a good way to ensure confidentiality, proof of authenticity and integrity, and is a convenient way to provide the organization with a requirement to exchange files privately.
The digital art industry faces critical challenges in copyright protection and privacy preservation that existing solutions fail to adequately address. Traditional digital watermarking techniques are vulnerable to removal attacks and cannot prevent unauthorized content access, while current Non-Fungible Token (NFT) platforms expose transaction details and artwork content due to blockchain transparency, creating privacy risks for creators and collectors. Conventional encryption methods require decryption before any data processing, making copyright verification and feature extraction impossible in encrypted states, thus creating a fundamental security-usability trade-off. To overcome these limitations, this research proposes a network security protection system integrating homomorphic encryption with NFT copyright protection. Homomorphic encryption was selected because it uniquely enables computational operations on encrypted data without decryption, allowing copyright verification while maintaining complete data confidentiality – a capability unmatched by alternative privacy-preserving technologies. The system employs the Cheon-Kim-Kim-Song (CKKS) homomorphic encryption algorithm to construct a three-tier protection architecture consisting of an encryption layer, verification layer, and storage layer. This architecture achieves copyright verification and feature extraction of digital artworks in ciphertext state by integrating zero-knowledge proof for identity authentication and Shamir’s secret sharing for secure key management. The NFT copyright protection mechanism introduces homomorphic watermark embedding and smart contract verification, combined with proxy re-encryption to implement secure copyright transfer. A prototype system was developed and evaluated through comprehensive testing. Security performance was assessed using six metrics: privacy protection strength, copyright verification accuracy, anti-tampering capability, key security, transaction anonymity, and system resilience. Each metric was scored on a 0–100 scale based on standardized penetration testing and cryptographic attack simulations, with the comprehensive security score calculated as the weighted average of all metrics. Performance testing on 100 digital artworks across five resolutions (256×256 to 4096×4096 pixels) demonstrates that encryption time for 512×512 resolution images is kept within 15 seconds, while security testing reveals the system achieves a comprehensive security score of 94.7, representing a 60.5% improvement over traditional NFT platforms. This solution provides a practical copyright protection framework balancing security and usability for the digital art industry, with significant theoretical value and broad application prospects.
Open access
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
In this paper, I argue that developmental stage theories and the six functional primitives proven necessary for adaptive decision-making are not merely analogous: they are two independently-discovered solutions to the same structural problem, and their convergence is evidence of that shared structure rather than of coincidence. The computational foundation is Ismail's Primitives (Ismail, 2026, V6.1) — a Lean 4/Mathlib formalization with zero sorry, zero custom axioms, and zero opaque terms — establishing that six functional properties are each necessary for sublinear regret under uncertainty, mutually irreplaceable, and compose into a self-reinforcing directed information chain: Objective Tracking, Cross-Context Safety Transfer, Global Attractor Exploration, Policy Simplification, Feasibility Projection, and Feedback Adaptation. The mapping. I align these six primitives, in sequence, against three developmental traditions built from incompatible methods and foundational assumptions about what psychology is: Erikson's psychosocial stages (clinical psychoanalytic observation), Maslow's motivational hierarchy (humanistic psychology's healthy-population method), and Bowlby's attachment phases (ethology and evolutionary biology). None was constructed with reference to the others. The alignment does more than pair labels: it supplies the first computational-rationality account of why these stages occur in this order and no other, and reframes their convergence as convergent evolution of functional architecture — artificial and biological systems arriving independently at the same sequential solution because they face the same adaptive problem, not because they share mechanisms or ancestry. The evidence. Three theoretical traditions, developed independently, using different methods, on different populations, converging on the same six-stage functional sequence is consilience in Whewell's (1840) and Wilson's (1998) technical sense: independent lines of inquiry arriving at the same structural conclusion. The necessity framework is the first principled account of why that convergence exists. The scope. Machine verification settles whether the six primitives are necessary and mutually irreplaceable as properties of decision processes; it does not settle whether human development instantiates them. That second claim is argued here on the consilience evidence above, not asserted by proof. This paper's role is to establish the functional bridge itself — the mapping, its theoretical licensing (multiple realizability, Marr's levels, computational rationality), and the testable predictions it generates for stage universality, cross-cultural variation, developmental arrest, intervention timing, and clinical and educational practice. A fuller clinical elaboration is developed in companion work. To this paper's knowledge, no developmental stage theory has previously been given an explicit computational-necessity account of why its stages occur in one fixed order rather than another, let alone one now grounded in a machine-checked proof. The companion mathematics paper and its complete Lean 4 formalization — zero sorry, zero custom axioms, ~12,700 lines, every theorem cross-referenced to its exact identifier — are at github.com/M-Ismail-ZA/IsmailsPrimitives (Zenodo: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21177368). For any feedback or collaboration, please contact me via the email address listed on the paper. Updated: 8 July 2026 (V3).
In digital security, anonymous credential systems are essential to ensure secure and private interactions. These systems have practical applications in various fields, such as online voting, healthcare, and financial services. However, due to high computational overhead and complex architecture, traditional anonymous credential systems often suffer from efficiency and scalability issues. To address these challenges, we propose an innovative approach that combines advanced cryptographic techniques such as randomized BLS aggregate signatures and optimized zero-knowledge proof usage mechanisms to achieve secure and private identity authentication with minimal overhead. We introduce HPPCS (High-Performance Privacy-Preserving Credential System), an anonymous credential framework that leverages randomizable aggregate signature technology to achieve efficiency and strong security. We conducted a security and experimental analysis of the HPPCS framework, and the results showed that HPPCS improves the efficiency of credential generation and verification while ensuring original security. This work establishes a powerful and practical framework for privacy-centric identity authentication systems.
Current agent payment standards enable transactions across varied infrastructure, including card systems, banking channels, and blockchain platforms, through cryptographic mandates binding user intentions to agent actions. These mandates create authorization structures while revealing critical vulnerabilities in transaction privacy protection, fine-grained delegation management, and cohesive governance implementation across multiple payment infrastructures. Zero-Knowledge Mandates introduce cryptographic techniques allowing agents to demonstrate compliance with spending restrictions while concealing constraint details from verifiers. Agents demonstrate compliance with spending caps, approved vendors, and time restrictions while keeping financial details and payment channel choices hidden. The system uses compact cryptographic proofs that allow verification without exposing mandate terms, user account information, or transaction routing. Core security guarantees include execution unlinkability, preventing transaction correlation, and verifiable compliance, ensuring constraint adherence. Technical implementation utilizes efficient proof systems, maintaining real-time transaction processing requirements. Evaluation addresses computational performance, information leakage boundaries, and practical deployment considerations across heterogeneous payment networks. The resulting architecture provides the first comprehensive privacy-preserving authorization primitive for autonomous commercial agents operating across multiple financial infrastructures simultaneously.
Ru Li, Jie Cui, Lu Wei, Irina Bolodurina · 6 authors
In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), distributed identity authentication provides the foundation for securing sessions among entities over wireless channels while eliminating single points of failure. However, existing distributed authentica tion schemes for VANETs typically make unrealistic assumptions about node reliability and trustworthiness, failing to account for scenarios where authentication nodes may be compromised or collude with vehicles. Moreover, these schemes expose the com munication process to linkability attacks while allowing vehicles to self-register their public keys. To address these limitations, we propose a privacy-preserving and accountable distributed collab orative authentication scheme for VANETs that is resilient to ma licious nodes. Using threshold signature techniques, distributed authentication nodes collaboratively perform decentralized ve hicle identity authentication using a predefined threshold. Zero knowledge proof protects the privacy of the signing process while maintaining accountability and effectively preventing malicious behavior by nodes under external or internal adversarial attacks. Furthermore, vehicles self-register their public keys via smart contracts and blockchain technology, ensuring anonymity and unlinkability during registration while enabling the traceability of malicious vehicles. Security and performance analyses show that the proposed scheme enhances the security and robustness of distributed collaborative authentication in VANETs, achieving a better balance between computational and communication costs than existing schemes
Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) are cryptographic protocols that allow verification of statements without disclosing the underlying information. Among them, PLONK-based ZKPs are particularly notable for offering succinct, non-interactive proofs of knowledge with a universal trusted setup, leading to widespread adoption in blockchain and cryptocurrency applications. Nonetheless, their broader deployment is hindered by long proof-generation times and substantial memory demands. While GPUs can accelerate these computations, their limited memory capacity introduces significant challenges for efficient end-to-end proof generation.
Abstract Lattice-based commitment schemes and their associated zero-knowledge proofs are essential building blocks for advanced lattice-based cryptographic protocols. In particular, proofs of algebraic relations among committed messages are widely used in privacy-preserving protocols such as range proofs. At CRYPTO 2020, Attema et al. proposed practical proofs for valid openings and multiplicative relations among committed values using the BDLOP commitment scheme. In their work, all commitments are generated using the same short randomness. In this paper, we consider a batch setting where commitments are generated using $$\ell$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>ℓ</mml:mi> </mml:math> independent random vectors and present a batch valid opening proof. Our construction generalizes the approach of Baum et al. by supporting a larger challenge set and removing the requirement for invertible challenge differences. As a result, the proof size scales logarithmically with $$\ell$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>ℓ</mml:mi> </mml:math> , rather than linearly. Furthermore, we introduce a product proof for committed messages with shared randomness across these $$\ell$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>ℓ</mml:mi> </mml:math> commitment groups. Compared to the naive approach of applying Attema’s product proof once and repeating the opening proof $$\ell -1$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>ℓ</mml:mi> <mml:mo>-</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> times, our method achieves significantly better communication efficiency.
Zhuo Wu, Shi Qi, Xinxuan Zhang, Yi Deng · 6 authors
Abstract Recent years have seen the widespread adoption of zkSNARKs constructed over small fields, including but not limited to, the Goldilocks field, small Mersenne prime fields, and tower of binary fields. Their appeal stems primarily from their efficacy in proving computations with small bit widths, which facilitates efficient proving of general computations and offers significant advantages, notably yielding remarkably fast proving efficiency for tasks such as proof of knowledge of hash preimages. Nevertheless, employing these SNARKs to prove algebraic statements (e.g., RSA, ECDSA signature verification) presents efficiency challenges, particularly in critical applications like zk-bridges and zkVMs that require verifying standard cryptographic primitives. To address this problem, we first define a new circuit model: arithmetic circuits with additional exponentiation gates . These gates serve as fundamental building blocks for establishing more intricate algebraic relations. Then we present a Hash-committed Commit-and-Prove (HCP) framework to construct Non-interactive Zero-knowledge (NIZK) proofs for the satisfiability of these circuits. Specifically, when proving knowledge of group exponentiations in discrete logarithm hard groups and RSA groups, compared to verifying complex group exponentiations within SNARK circuits, our approach requires proving only more lightweight computations within the SNARK, such as zk-friendly hash functions (e.g., Poseidon hash function). The number of these lightweight computations depends solely on the security parameter. This differentiation leads to substantial speedups for the prover relative to direct SNARK methods, while maintaining competitive proof size and verification cost.
Nacereddine Sitouah, Francesco Bruschi, Stefano De Cillis
The passing of the eIDAS amendment marks an important milestone for EU countries and changes how they must manage digital credentials for both public services and businesses. Italy has led in adopting eIDAS, first with CIE and SPID identity schemes, and now with the Italian Wallet (IO app) aligned to eIDAS 2.0. Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is a decentralized model born from the success of Distributed Ledgers, giving individuals full control over their digital identity. The current eIDAS 2.0 and its implementation acts diverge from SSI principles, rendering the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDIW) centralized and merely user-centric, prioritizing security and legal protection over true self-sovereignty. This paper proposes an architecture that enables the use of IT Wallet credentials and services in an SSI-compliant environment through Trusted Execution Environments and Zero-Knowledge Proofs.