This paper explores the application of quantum error correction (QEC) codes to enhance the security and resilience of blockchain technology. Traditional blockchains are vulnerable to attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in their distributed ledger systems. The core challenge lies in the immutable nature of the blockchain, where a single compromised node can potentially disrupt the entire network. This research proposes leveraging the powerful error-correcting capabilities of QEC codes to safeguard blockchain data. Specifically, we examine the encoding and decoding processes using various QEC codes, focusing on their ability to detect and correct errors introduced by malicious actors. The integration of QEC codes into the blockchain architecture can significantly improve its tolerance to attacks, ensuring data integrity and maintaining the trust inherent in the blockchain system. We present a framework for implementing QEC within blockchain transactions and discuss the potential performance implications. The primary goal is to demonstrate that QEC codes offer a viable path towards a more robust and secure blockchain ecosystem.
This comprehensive 500-page architectural specification details the complete deployment framework for the CATECHON Hardware Inhibitor and its associated global ecosystem. The document establishes the definitive standard for sub-nanosecond deterministic control systems and is divided into three primary operational domains: 1. Physical Integration & Hardware Protocol (The "BOX"): Exact engineering specifications for the Active Plasma Stability Controller (FPGA-Based). Includes >100 MSPS ADC interfaces, full galvanic isolation, and sub-nanosecond deterministic mitigation of Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities (e.g., VDEs) utilizing the K_0 metric engineering approach. This section defines the physical bridge between theoretical metrics and hardware-level Zero Trust execution. 2. Theoretical Foundations & AI Containment: Extension of the hardware-level inhibition architecture to cognitive trajectories, autonomous AI containment, and quantum entropy management (including the Cybernetic Zeno Effect and ChronoSphere modeling). 3. Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) & Governance: The foundational legal, financial, and operational infrastructure required for the deployment of CATECHON technology. This section outlines the smart contract architecture, token annihilation mechanics, the Balance DevHub framework, and the non-negotiable architectural veto rights designed to ensure absolute system safety and integrity. RESTRICTION NOTICE: This archive contains proprietary hardware calibration offsets, integration keys, and closed governance protocols. Public access is strictly restricted.
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
Custom tokens are fundamental in decentralized applications (dApps) operating on Ethereum and other Blockchain platforms. Ethereum, in particular, relies on the ERC-20 standard as a widely accepted token interface, facilitating seamless integration with numerous pre-existing dApps, user interface platforms, and popular web applications like exchange services. A notable security challenge within the ERC-20 framework is the “lost token problem”. This problem arises because users occasionally send tokens to the wrong addresses, and it has caused more than $27 million in damage. In this paper, we evaluate three existing solutions to this issue. Through the utilization of formal modeling, property specification, and the TLC model checker. Most importantly, we propose a novel double-layer solution to remedy the ERC-20 vulnerability. Our formal verification and experimental results indicate our approach encompasses the protection of the already deployed smart contracts, which is a critical aspect that has never been addressed in the existing mitigation techniques.
Open access
Security and Verification in Computing
Radiation Effects in Electronics
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Decentralized and Connected Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) networks offer promising advances in safety, efficiency, and real-time decision-making. However, they face significant challenges in authentication, privacy, and scalability—especially in the face of quantum adversaries. This paper proposes a novel post-quantum secure framework that integrates lattice-based Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), optimized Binius proofs, and Multi-Layer Compressed Counting Bloom Filters (ML-CCBF) to enable privacy-preserving authentication and model verification in decentralized CAV environments. Our lattice-based ZKP scheme achieves cryptographic commitments in under 5μs, while Binius proofs verify model integrity in less than 0.17 seconds per update. ML-CCBF ensures scalable membership filtering with 0% false positives across 1000 nodes. Experimental results confirm 100% ZKP soundness, strong resilience against simulated quantum and adaptive attacks, and stable latency under increasing network load. These findings demonstrate that our framework delivers quantum-resilient security, real-time efficiency, and robust scalability, offering a viable solution for trustworthy decentralized intelligence in next-generation vehicular systems.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) on Ethereum has undergone significant transformations since its emergence during the DeFi summer of 2020. With the introduction of Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS), the transaction supply chain on Ethereum has shifted from relying entirely on the public mempool for DeFi interactions to an astonishing 80% usage of private RPCs. These private RPCs submit transactions directly to builders, skipping the public mempool, while conducting Order Flow Auctions (OFAs) to capture MEV backrun rebates and gas rebates. Our findings reveal that not all RPCs OFAs produce the same outcomes. These insights underscore the significant implications of OFA design choices on transaction efficiency and execution quality, and thus why an order flow originators should pay close attention to which OFA they use.
Zhengbang Yang, Lutan Zhao, Peinan Li, Han Liu · 8 authors
Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) allows a prover to convince a verifier of the truth of a statement without revealing any secret information. This property is utilized in numerous privacy-preserving applications. However, the huge overhead of proof generation impedes the widespread adoption of ZKP. As a result, many ZKP accelerators have been developed to speed up proof generation. However, existing accelerators are designed at the granularity of core operators and exhibit low hardware resource utilization and limited adaptability. In this paper, we identify the commonality of all computation stages in proof generation at the level of basic finite field arithmetic operations. Based on this insight, we propose LegoZK, a dynamically reconfigurable hardware accelerator for ZKP. LegoZK employs finite field arithmetic units (FAUs) as its fundamental components and integrates these FAUs with a hierarchical on-chip network (NoC). By dynamically configuring the FAUs and the NoC, LegoZK can effectively accelerate the entire proof generation process, achieving higher overall performance. Additionally, for the most time-consuming MSM, this paper proposes a fast, fully pipelined bucket reduction algorithm based on lookup tables, which significantly reduces the latency of MSM. Experimental results demonstrate that LegoZK achieves on average speedup of $31.96 \times$ and $11.30 \times$ in proof generation compared to the state-of-the-art ZKP ASIC accelerator PipeZK and the GPU accelerator GZKP, respectively. And compared to PipeZK, LegoZK achieves $\mathbf{5 0. 1 \%}$ area reduction and $\mathbf{3 7. 7 \%}$ power consumption reduction.
Hao Zhou, Changxu Liu, Lan Yang, Li Shang · 5 authors
Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) plays a significant role in privacy protection technology. However, the proof generation phase requires considerable time and hardware resources. In this phase, Number Theoretic Transform or Inverse Number Theoretic Transform (NTT/INTT) in polynomial computation, as well as Multiple Scalar Multiplication (MSM), are bottlenecks that dominate the execution time. In this paper, we propose a highly reconfigurable accelerator ReZK to accelerate ZKP proof generation phase, focusing on NTT/INTT and MSM. According to the configurations, ReZK can be configured as NTT, INTT, and MSM with variable sizes and bit-widths by adjusting the data path between on-chip memories and arithmetic cores. As the basic unit of arithmetic cores, the reconfigurable processing element (PE) in ReZK is composed of pipelined modular multipliers and modular adders that support variable bit-widths. It can perform butterfly or arithmetic operations. Based on the reconfigurable PEs, the ReZK core can implement NTT/INTT with different sizes and bit-widths, or a fully pipelined point adder (PADD). Additionally, we propose a modularized MSM scheduling architecture to support various bit-widths. The on-chip memories are also well organized for reuse. In NTT/INTT mode, 4-way 256-bit or 2-way 384-bit NTT/INTT can be computed in parallel. In MSM mode, for different elliptic curves, ReZK is capable of processing 4-way 256-bit or 2-way 384-bit MSM in parallel.
Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) systems have surged attention and held a fundamental role in contemporary cryptography. Zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge (zk-SNARK) protocols dominate the ZKP usage, implemented through arithmetic circuit programming paradigm. However, underconstrained or overconstrained circuits may lead to bugs. The former refers to circuits that lack the necessary constraints, resulting in unexpected solutions and causing the verifier to accept a bogus witness, and the latter refers to circuits that are constrained excessively, resulting in lacking necessary solutions and causing the verifier to accept no witness. This paper introduces a novel approach for pinpointing two distinct types of bugs in ZKP circuits. The method involves encoding the arithmetic circuit constraints to polynomial equation systems and solving them over finite fields by the computer algebra system. The classification of verification results is refined, greatly enhancing the expressive power of the system. A tool, AC4, is proposed to represent the implementation of the method. Experiments show that AC4 demonstrates a increase in the solved rate, showing a 29% improvement over Picus and CIVER, and a slight improvement over halo2-analyzer, a checker for halo2 circuits. Within a solvable range, the checking time has also exhibited noticeable improvement, demonstrating a magnitude increase compared to previous efforts.
Vladimir Kukharenko, Kirill Ziborov, Rafael Faritovich Sadykov, Ruslan Rezin
The extent of formal verification methods applied in industrial projects has always been limited. The proliferation of distributed ledger systems (DLS), also known as blockchain , is rapidly changing the situation. Since the main area of DLSs’ application is the automation of financial transactions, the properties of predictability and reliability are critical for implementing such systems. The actual behavior of the DLS is largely determined by the chosen consensus protocol, which properties require strict specification and formal verification. Formal specification and verification of the consensus protocol is necessary but not sufficient. It is also required to ensure that the software implementation of the DLS nodes complies with this protocol. Finally, the verified software implementation of the protocol must run on a fairly reliable operating system. The financial focus of DLS application has also led to the emergence of the so-called smart contracts , which are an important part of the applied implementations of specific business processes based on DLSs. Therefore, the verifiability of smart contracts is also a critical requirement for industrial DLSs. In this paper, we describe an ongoing industrial project between a large Russian airline and three universities – Innopolis University (IU), Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU). The main expected project result is a DLS for more flexible refueling of aircrafts, verified at least at the four technological levels described above. After brief project overview, we focus on our experience with the formal specification and verification of HotStuff, a leader-based fault-tolerant protocol that ensures reaching distributed consensus in the presence of Byzantine processes. The formal specification of the protocol is performed in the TLA+ language and then verified with a specialized TLC tool to verify models based on TLA+ specifications.
Recent years have witnessed a boom in blockchain systems written in Rust to utilize its efficiency and safety. Unfortunately, deadlock bugs have become one of the ubiquitous banes to these systems due to the heavy use of locks for parallelism and the misunderstanding of the lock mechanism in Rust. This paper analyzed the common lock-related pitfalls in blockchain systems written in Rust and proposed Stuck-me-not, the first MIR-based static deadlock detector, for the most common deadlock type: double-lock. We have discovered 29 previously unknown double-lock bugs in 11 popular blockchain-related projects. We believe our work can greatly improve the concurrency security of the current blockchain ecosystem.
Non-malleable codes provide a useful and meaningful security guarantee in situations where traditional error-correction (and even error-detection) is impossible, for example, when the attacker can completely overwrite the encoded message. Informally, a code is non-malleable if the message contained in a modified codeword is either the original message or a completely unrelated value. Although such codes do not exist if the family of “tampering functions” ${\mathcal F}$ is completely unrestricted, they are known to exist for many broad tampering families ${\mathcal F}$. One such natural family is the family of tampering functions in the so-called split-state model. Here the message $m$ is encoded into two shares $L$ and $R$, and the attacker is allowed to arbitrarily tamper with $L$ and $R$ individually. The split-state tampering arises in many realistic applications, such as the design of non-malleable secret sharing schemes, motivating the question of designing efficient non-malleable codes in this model. Prior to this work, non-malleable codes in the split-state model received considerable attention in the literature but either (1) were constructed in the random oracle model, or (2) relied on advanced cryptographic assumptions (such as noninteractive zero-knowledge proofs and leakage-resilient encryption), or (3) could only encode 1-bit messages. As our main result, we build the first efficient, multi-bit, information-theoretically-secure non-malleable code in the split-state model. The heart of our construction uses the following new property of the inner-product function $\langle{L,R\rangle}$ over the vector space ${{F}_p}^n$ (for a prime $p$ and large enough dimension $n$): if $L$ and $R$ are uniformly random over ${\mathbb{F}_p}^n$, and $f,g:{\mathbb{F}_p}^n\rightarrow {\mathbb{F}_p}^n$ are two arbitrary functions on $L$ and $R$, then the joint distribution $(\langle{L,R\rangle},\langle{f(L),g(R)\rangle})$ is “close” to the convex combination of “affine distributions” $\{(U,aU+b)\mid a,b\in \mathbb{F}_p\}$, where $U$ is uniformly random in ${\mathbb{F}_p}$. In turn, the proof of this surprising property of the inner product function critically relies on some results from additive combinatorics, including the so-called quasi-polynomial Freiman--Ruzsa theorem, which was recently established by Sanders [Anal. PDE, 5 (2012), pp. 627--655] as a step toward resolving the polynomial Freiman--Ruzsa conjecture [B. Green, in Surveys in Combinatorics, London Mathematical Society, London, 2005, pp. 1--29].
Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency today. A bedrock of the Bitcoin framework is mining, a computation intensive process that is used to verify Bitcoin transactions for profit. We observe that mining is inherently error tolerant due to its embarrassingly parallel and probabilistic nature. We exploit this inherent tolerance to inaccuracy by proposing approximate mining circuits that trade off reliability with area and delay. These circuits can then be operated at Better Than Worst-Case (BTWC) to enable further gains. Our results show that approximation has the potential to increase mining profits by 30%.
Low-power high-performance VLSI design
Advancements in Semiconductor Devices and Circuit Design
The Indium Field Emission Thruster (In‐FET) is a highly characterized and space‐proven device based on space‐qualified liquid metal ion sources. There is also extensive experience with liquid metal ion sources for high‐brightness semiconductor fabrications and inspection Like gridded ion engines, In‐FETs efficiently accelerate ions through a series of high voltage electrodes. Instead of a plasma discharge to generate ions, which generates a mixture of singly and doubly charged ions as well as neutrals, indium metal is melted (157°C) and fed to the tip of a capillary tube where very high local electric fields perform more‐efficient field emission ionization, providing nearly 100% singly charged species. In‐FETs do not have the associated losses or lifetime concerns of a magnetically confined discharge and hollow cathode in ion thrusters. For In‐FETs, propellant efficiencies ∼100% stipulate single‐emitter currents ⩽10μA, perhaps as low as 5μA of current. This low emitter current results in ⩽0.5 W/emitter. Consequently, if the In‐FET is to be used for future Human and Robotic missions under President Bush’s Exploration plan, a mechanism to generate very high power levels is necessary. Efficient high‐power operation requires many emitter/extractor pairs. Conventional fabrication techniques allow 1–10 emitters in a single module, with pain‐staking precision required. Properly designed and fabricated In‐FETs possess electric‐to‐jet efficiency >90% and a specific mass <0.25 kg/kWe. MEMS techniques allow reliable batch processing with ∼160,000 emitters in a 10×10‐cm array. Developing a 1.5kW 10×10‐cm module is a necessary stepping‐stone for >500 kWe systems where groups of 9 or 16 modules, with a single PPU/feed system, form the building blocks for even higher‐power exploration systems. In 2003, SNL and ARCS produced a MEMS‐based In‐FET 5×5 emitter module with individually addressable emitter/extractor pairs on a 15×15mm wafer. The first MEMS thruster prototype has already been tested to demonstrate the proof‐of‐concept in laboratory‐scale testing. In this paper we discuss progress that has been achieved in the past year on fabricating silicon‐based MEMS In‐FETs.
This paper presents a distributed fault injection and monitoring environment (DEFINE) as a tool to evaluate system dependability, to investigate fault propagation, and to validate fault-tolerant mechanisms. DEFINE can inject both hardware faults (hardware-induced software errors) and software faults into any process running in a distributed system, either in user mode or in supervisor mode, and monitor the fault impact and propagation in software systems and among machines. It employs two fault injection techniques: (i) using hardware clock interrupts to control the time of fault injection and activation, and (ii) using software traps to inject all the faults except communication faults and memory faults in the data/stack segment. Experiments on six Sun SPARCstations to study the system behavior under faults are conducted to demonstrate the application of DEFINE.