--- layout: post title: Logs for the Monero Research Lab Meeting Held on 2019-08-26 summary: Surae work, Sarang work, and miscellaneous tags: [dev diaries, community, crypto, research] author: el00ruobuob / sarang --- # Logs **\<sarang>** All righty! **\<sarang>** Let's begin our meeting **\<sarang>** Agenda: https://github.com/monero-project/meta/issues/385 **\<sarang>** Logs will be posted there after the meeting **\<sarang>** GREETINGS **\<rehrar>** hi **\<parasew[m]>** hello **\<suraeNoether>** good morning **\<sarang>** Let's move to ROUNDTABLE **\<sarang>** suraeNoether: care to go first? **\<suraeNoether>** sure, last week I made a commit to my buttercup branch with some matching algorithm fixes, which is now operating as far as i can tell 100% smoothly **\<sarang>** Nice! Looking forward to reviewing it **\<suraeNoether>** i also have the framework for a markov chain simulator of a basic ledger almost ready to push later today, which we will be using to identify best practices while churning, etc **\<suraeNoether>** in addition to that, I discovered a discrete distribution over the weekend that could be very helpful in working with output selection **\<suraeNoether>** that's pretty much it. not tremendously eventful, except the matching algo unit tests **\<sarang>** Will be neat to see if we can adjust output selection to such a distribution efficiently and robustly **\<sarang>** Low priority in the grand scheme of things, but intriguing nonetheless **\<sarang>** I am finishing preparation of the CLSAG paper for submission to Financial Cryptography 2020 **\<hyc>** definitely, will be nice to have some exploration of churning that we can document **\<sarang>** PR 5707 has been updated to simplify the hashing code **\<suraeNoether>** oh, sarang and i decided we should also submit the thring signature paper to FinCrypt2020 also, sort of doubling our chances (but not really, it's nonlinear :P) **\<sarang>** Note that this removes `hashToPointSimple` and moves its functionality directly into the relevant unit test **\<sarang>** `hashToPointSimple` is only used to produce a Pedersen generator, but it's brittle on arbitrary input and not useful elsewhere **\<sarang>** (unless we updated how we do hash-to-points to use an iterated index, but this is not backwards-compatible) **\<sarang>** Additional eyes on PR 5707 would be welcome **\<sarang>** And: Stanford announced the dates and CFP of their next blockchain conference **\<sarang>** TBH it's probably not worth our time to submit a paper/presentation, given their acceptance rate **\<sarang>** Unless anyone has an idea for something something zero knowledge ethereum =p **\<sarang>** I kid, I kid **\<suraeNoether>** \*cough\* **\<suraeNoether>** but not **\<hyc>** lol **\<sarang>** Finally, I continue analysis work on proving systems **\<suraeNoether>** 5707 is for how the second basepoint in our pedersen commitments are selected. if i recall from my conversation with sarang earlier, this PR will make the monero codebase slightly more robust, less brittle, more consistent with the way it works, and more importantly \*more easily verified to be correct\* by new users, even though it's a relatively small change **\<sarang>** RingCT3.0 is exploitable in its current form, but I'm told a forthcoming fix likely solves the problem (unclear if provably at this point) with little impact on efficiency **\<sarang>** suraeNoether: the change only makes it harder to use the wrong hashing method :) **\<sarang>** and enables slightly more efficient hash-to-point operations under some constructions **\<sarang>** Anyway, a new preprint (IACR/944) discusses a new proving system for more general constraint systems **\<sarang>** And there will be a forthcoming preprint with a proving system on pairing groups, which simplifies cleanly to non-pairing groups too **\<sarang>** I've been looking over that one, since the authors graciously provided an advance copy **\<sarang>** What will be interesting is whether the Omniring prover relations can be efficiently moved into a more general proving system **\<sarang>** Making it easier (in theory) to do future changes **\<kenshamir[m]>** Could you comment on the computational complexity when you simplify the proving system to a non-pairing group? **\<sarang>** Eventually =p **\<sarang>** I've only just begun working through that paper **\<sarang>** FWIW I'm told the preprint is quite imminent **\<kenshamir[m]>** Ahh alright, any idea when it will be released? **\<sarang>** ^^ **\<sarang>** Oh and suraeNoether: the primary purpose of 5707 is to speed up MLSAG by removing redundant operations... this led to simplifications of the available hashing operations as a side effect **\<suraeNoether>** thanks for correcting that! i didn't realize the larger scope (just started going through it) **\<sarang>** and at that point it seemed like a good idea to remove the brittle `hashToPointSimple` and put it directly into the unit test that enables verification of how `H` was derived **\<sarang>** There are two commits: the second commit moves the hash stuff around **\<sarang>** the first commit alters the MLSAG code **\<suraeNoether>** gotcha **\<sarang>** All righty **\<sarang>** Does anyone else wish to share interesting research work? **\<rehrar>** :/ if I were that smart, sure **\<sarang>** Don't underestimate yourself! **\<sarang>** While we're at it, we can also do GENERAL QUESTIONS for anyone **\<rehrar>** well, I did read a recent paper on hormesis as it relates to beetles. **\<sarang>** lol **\<rehrar>** my skills are not going to be helpful here :P **\<hyc>** oh, you just reminded me of that stream of tweets from Sarah Jamie Lewis yesterday, about ants and alarm pheromones **\<sarang>** Regarding CLSAG, the plan is to submit to several relevant conferences/journals (in sequence) and hope for acceptance **\<hyc>** the relevance was to illustrating how localized decision making can be gamed / subverted **\<sarang>** It falls into an awkward spot: it's a neat improvement on earlier work with good security model/proofs, but isn't profoundly new **\<sarang>** And unfortunately you can't do simultaneous submissions :/ **\<hyc>** (and thus an argument why you need global consensus) **\<sarang>** The FC deadline is in September, with notification by November 15 **\<hyc>** lots of stuff isn't profoundly new, but the imporvement still is worth talking about **\<sarang>** Yeah, but that's tough for publication **\<hyc>** maybe different forums then. heck, chip manufacturers give big presentations on ~5-10% gains **\<sarang>** Hence doing a fair bit of rewriting for better context **\<hyc>** cool. yes, expanding the scope of applicability is also a good angle **\<sarang>** and page limits (grumble grumble stupid wide margins) **\<sarang>** Aaaaanyway **\<sarang>** Perhaps on to ACTION ITEMS **\<sarang>** I have several, and I don't expect to complete them all this week **\<sarang>** CLSAG revisions, in preparation for submission **\<sarang>** My doctoral adviser always recommended putting down a paper for a week after your revisions, so you can revisit it with fresh eyes before submission **\<sarang>** Second is a better understanding of the reduction of this forthcoming proving system to non-pairing groups **\<sarang>** Third is going over suraeNoether's completed matching code **\<sarang>** Since suraeNoether had to step away for a few minutes, I assume his action items are applications of his test-passing matching code, and preparation of the thring signature paper for its submission (he can correct me later) **\<sarang>** Any last comments or questions or information from anyone? **\<sarang>** OK, we can adjourn! Thanks to everyone for joining in **\<sarang>** Logs will be posted shortly to the agenda issue