monero-site/_posts/2019-07-08-logs-for-the-Monero-Research-Lab-meeting-held-on-2019-07-08.md

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2019-07-20 21:52:56 +00:00
---
layout: post
title: Logs for the Monero Research Lab Meeting Held on 2019-07-08
summary: Surae work, Sarang work, and miscellaneous
tags: [dev diaries, crypto, research]
2019-07-20 21:52:56 +00:00
author: el00ruobuob / sarang
---
# Logs
**\<sarang>** Righto, let's begin our meeting!
**\<sarang>** Agenda: https://github.com/monero-project/meta/issues/368
**\<sarang>** Starting now with GREETINGS
**\<sarang>** hi
**\<sgp\_>** Hi
**\<sarang>** suraeNoether: you here?
**\<sarang>** It's quiet... too quiet...
**\<suraeNoether>** yes
**\<suraeNoether>** sorry
**\<suraeNoether>** hellow gents
**\<suraeNoether>** harrow
**\<sarang>** Let's jump into ROUNDTABLE then, with our small crowd
**\<suraeNoether>** mine is going to be super fast: last week basically right after the research meeting i started getting very ill. long story short, i went to the hospital, and let me just say: recreational pancreatitis is not a thing for a reason
**\<sarang>** but it'd be a cool name for a band
**\<suraeNoether>** yes. yes. \*strokes chin\*
**\<suraeNoether>** so, i'm trying to take it easy and i did very little this past week
**\<sarang>** Glad to see you're well enough to debug :)
**\<sarang>** For me, MLSAG/CLSAG verification updates continue, with PR 5707 open for review and similar changes to my CLSAG branch (to be included in later code for review)
**\<suraeNoether>** i have a few things on my plate for today, but other than that: i'm basically all action items and no progress compared to last week. onto sarang :D
**\<sarang>** I've been in contact with Aram, the author of the Lelantus paper/protocol; he came up with an interesting idea to make the prover very efficient, at the cost of proof size and verification
**\<sarang>** although the verification cost can be batched, of course
**\<sarang>** I view proving time as generally unimportant (to an extent), but it's a very clever new way to prove a 1-of-N zero commitment
**\<suraeNoether>** good prover times means fast construction of transaction for mobile devices
**\<suraeNoether>** which is v nice
**\<sarang>** true
**\<sarang>** but if it costs you both space and verification time...
**\<suraeNoether>** unlike, say, verification time, which puts a constraint on how rapidly the network can grow, which has security consequences for the chain
**\<suraeNoether>** ^ ah yeah that's true: is it faster with a big space tradeoff?
**\<sarang>** Faster prover, slower verifier, bigger proof
**\<sarang>** I think you can batch away some of the verification increase (you effectively do two smaller proofs)
**\<sarang>** There's a non-public draft writeup already, but I assume he'll work it into the main paper once the modified security proofs are complete
**\<suraeNoether>** oooof
**\<suraeNoether>** very interesting consequences
**\<sarang>** Regardless, it's a damn clever construction
**\<suraeNoether>** i'm excited to read all about it
**\<sarang>** I'll ask if I can send it to you suraeNoether (not public though, sorry)
**\<sarang>** I'm investigating a possible modification to Omniring that splits out the range proofs, improving verification batching at the cost of proof size
**\<sarang>** And, because of the Omniring non-batching currently available, am revisiting analysis of RCT3
**\<sarang>** Which, while it would require a separate output pool (non-compatible key image structure), does allow for batching of proofs (aside from ring member group elements, which cannot be batched unless reused)
**\<suraeNoether>** last we spoke about this, we were still interested in writing up a comparison paper, but you've done all the legwork on it so far
**\<suraeNoether>** still the plan?
**\<sarang>** I don't consider a formal paper necessary, or even a great use of time
**\<sarang>** But analyses of spacetime, totally
**\<suraeNoether>** fair, maybe we can do a blog post on tradeoffs between the three schemes or something
**\<sarang>** Maybe, but it gets subtle and complex really quickly under many different assumptions
**\<sarang>** There isn't really a quick-and-dirty soundbite answer to which is better or worse
**\<sarang>** Depends heavily on input/output structure, use of fixed epochs, batch behavior, etc.
**\<sarang>** and output pool migration is nontrivial
**\<sarang>** Omniring would \_not\_ require this... Lelantus and RCT3 would
**\<sarang>** (or rather, Omniring does not \_require\_ this)
**\<suraeNoether>** see... when you say all that, it seems like it \*is\* a good use of time. maybe not high priority, but
**\<sarang>** A comparison is useful, I agree. But I don't want it to get lost in unnecessary formality of a full paper
**\<sarang>** And a comparison is exactly what I'm doing
**\<sarang>** Any questions on these topics?
**\<sgp\_>** Just a comment to say simple comparisons are good
**\<sarang>** roger
**\<sarang>** Does anyone else have research topics of interest to share?
**\<sarang>** Righto!
**\<nioc>** suraeNoether: people are wondering what the attendance was at konferenco
**\<sarang>** At least provide a range proof
**\<moneromooo>** 26 people and 172 sybils.
**\<nioc>** an article in coindesk mentioned 75 which I know is way low
**\<suraeNoether>** nioc: i'm finishing up my post-mortem report on the konferenco today (on my action item list). We had 150 swag bags made, with around 30-40 leftover, but we had 27 speakers and like 10 sponsors.
**\<nioc>** I estimated 120 just by glancing
**\<suraeNoether>** 75 is the number i gave coindesk for the number of attendees on Saturday morning, but more people bought tickets on both days and the totals were higher
**\<suraeNoether>** if you count speakers and sponsors, that's around 110 on the first day, and around 125 the second
**\<nioc>** think you mran Sunday morning
**\<nioc>** mean
**\<suraeNoether>** nope, we sold tickets throughout the afternoon on saturday and a few on sunday too. but coindesk asked for a comment on saturday morning, so i told them what i had sold at that point
**\<nioc>** I'll wait for the report
**\<suraeNoether>** k
**\<nioc>** thx
**\<sarang>** suraeNoether: congratulations on effectively committing yourself to running a kickass conference annually until the end of time =p
**\<suraeNoether>** it was actually some of the best days of my life, but i've been told explicitly by my doctors that i need to take a vacation
**\<suraeNoether>** so i'm planning for that in august, since scary cardio and internal medicine people told me so with stern voices
**\<sarang>** Well then, let's move on to ACTION ITEMS
**\<sarang>** I have many things in progress. Lelantus proof review, modified Omniring split proof analysis, RCT3 analysis, and starting to put together my defcon talk/workshop
**\<suraeNoether>** my action items: konferenco post mortem, research report for previous quarter, funding request for the next 3 months, and some debuggin
**\<sarang>** I'm doing a talk on transaction protocols (very high level), a workshop on simple cryptographic constructions with Python, and a panel discussion at the blockchain village
**\<suraeNoether>** oh and i'm definitely not going to defcon this year. i can ship leftover swag like our USB data blockers with the monero logo and our pull-up banners if someone sends me the information for it
**\<sarang>** :(
**\<sarang>** The pull-up banners would be nice, assuming it's cheaper to ship than to get new ones
**\<sarang>** as would the USB blockers
**\<suraeNoether>** i'll look into it; ordering the usb blockers may be short notice but i can find out
**\<suraeNoether>** unless you just meant shipping the banners
**\<suraeNoether>** which is cool too
**\<sarang>** Yeah I meant the banners
**\<sarang>** I believe there was an idea to perhaps order more blockers for this (I'm not the one to ask)
**\<sarang>** If you have extra USB blockers and would ship with the banners, cool
**\<suraeNoether>** fantastic, i am happy folks liked the blockers
**\<sarang>** Any last questions or comments before we formally adjourn, since agenda topics have been completed?
**\<sarang>** Going once
**\<sarang>** twice
**\<sarang>** adjourned!
**\<sarang>** Thanks to everyone for attending; logs will be posted shortly on the github issue