Internet-Draft VDAF August 2022
Barnes, et al. Expires 25 February 2023 [Page]
Workgroup:
CFRG
Internet-Draft:
draft-irtf-cfrg-vdaf-03
Published:
Intended Status:
Informational
Expires:
Authors:
R. L. Barnes
Cisco
C. Patton
Cloudflare
P. Schoppmann
Google

Verifiable Distributed Aggregation Functions

Abstract

This document describes Verifiable Distributed Aggregation Functions (VDAFs), a family of multi-party protocols for computing aggregate statistics over user measurements. These protocols are designed to ensure that, as long as at least one aggregation server executes the protocol honestly, individual measurements are never seen by any server in the clear. At the same time, VDAFs allow the servers to detect if a malicious or misconfigured client submitted an input that would result in an incorrect aggregate result.

Discussion Venues

This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

Discussion of this document takes place on the Crypto Forum Research Group mailing list (cfrg@ietf.org), which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?email_list=cfrg.

Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/cjpatton/vdaf.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

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This Internet-Draft will expire on 25 February 2023.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

The ubiquity of the Internet makes it an ideal platform for measurement of large-scale phenomena, whether public health trends or the behavior of computer systems at scale. There is substantial overlap, however, between information that is valuable to measure and information that users consider private.

For example, consider an application that provides health information to users. The operator of an application might want to know which parts of their application are used most often, as a way to guide future development of the application. Specific users' patterns of usage, though, could reveal sensitive things about them, such as which users are researching a given health condition.

In many situations, the measurement collector is only interested in aggregate statistics, e.g., which portions of an application are most used or what fraction of people have experienced a given disease. Thus systems that provide aggregate statistics while protecting individual measurements can deliver the value of the measurements while protecting users' privacy.

Most prior approaches to this problem fall under the rubric of "differential privacy (DP)" [Dwo06]. Roughly speaking, a data aggregation system that is differentially private ensures that the degree to which any individual measurement influences the value of the aggregate result can be precisely controlled. For example, in systems like RAPPOR [EPK14], each user samples noise from a well-known distribution and adds it to their input before submitting to the aggregation server. The aggregation server then adds up the noisy inputs, and because it knows the distribution from whence the noise was sampled, it can estimate the true sum with reasonable precision.

Differentially private systems like RAPPOR are easy to deploy and provide a useful guarantee. On its own, however, DP falls short of the strongest privacy property one could hope for. Specifically, depending on the "amount" of noise a client adds to its input, it may be possible for a curious aggregator to make a reasonable guess of the input's true value. Indeed, the more noise the clients add, the less reliable will be the server's estimate of the output. Thus systems employing DP techniques alone must strike a delicate balance between privacy and utility.

The ideal goal for a privacy-preserving measurement system is that of secure multi-party computation (MPC): No participant in the protocol should learn anything about an individual input beyond what it can deduce from the aggregate. In this document, we describe Verifiable Distributed Aggregation Functions (VDAFs) as a general class of protocols that achieve this goal.

VDAF schemes achieve their privacy goal by distributing the computation of the aggregate among a number of non-colluding aggregation servers. As long as a subset of the servers executes the protocol honestly, VDAFs guarantee that no input is ever accessible to any party besides the client that submitted it. At the same time, VDAFs are "verifiable" in the sense that malformed inputs that would otherwise garble the output of the computation can be detected and removed from the set of input measurements.

In addition to these MPC-style security goals, VDAFs can be composed with various mechanisms for differential privacy, thereby providing the added assurance that the aggregate result itself does not leak too much information about any one measurement.

The cost of achieving these security properties is the need for multiple servers to participate in the protocol, and the need to ensure they do not collude to undermine the VDAF's privacy guarantees. Recent implementation experience has shown that practical challenges of coordinating multiple servers can be overcome. The Prio system [CGB17] (essentially a VDAF) has been deployed in systems supporting hundreds of millions of users: The Mozilla Origin Telemetry project [OriginTelemetry] and the Exposure Notification Private Analytics collaboration among the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), Google, Apple, and others [ENPA].

The VDAF abstraction laid out in Section 5 represents a class of multi-party protocols for privacy-preserving measurement proposed in the literature. These protocols vary in their operational and security considerations, sometimes in subtle but consequential ways. This document therefore has two important goals:

  1. Providing higher-level protocols like [DAP] with a simple, uniform interface for accessing privacy-preserving measurement schemes, and documenting relevant operational and security bounds for that interface:

    1. General patterns of communications among the various actors involved in the system (clients, aggregation servers, and the collector of the aggregate result);
    2. Capabilities of a malicious coalition of servers attempting to divulge information about client measurements; and
    3. Conditions that are necessary to ensure that malicious clients cannot corrupt the computation.
  2. Providing cryptographers with design criteria that provide a clear deployment roadmap for new constructions.

This document also specifies two concrete VDAF schemes, each based on a protocol from the literature.

Finally, perhaps the most complex aspect of schemes like Prio3 and Poplar1 is the process by which the client-generated measurements are prepared for aggregation. Because these constructions are based on secret sharing, the servers will be required to exchange some amount of information in order to verify the measurement is valid and can be aggregated. Depending on the construction, this process may require multiple round trips over the network.

There are applications in which this verification step may not be necessary, e.g., when the client's software is run a trusted execution environment. To support these applications, this document also defines Distributed Aggregation Functions (DAFs) as a simpler class of protocols that aim to provide the same privacy guarantee as VDAFs but fall short of being verifiable.

The remainder of this document is organized as follows: Section 3 gives a brief overview of DAFs and VDAFs; Section 4 defines the syntax for DAFs; Section 5 defines the syntax for VDAFs; Section 6 defines various functionalities that are common to our constructions; Section 7 describes the Prio3 construction; Section 8 describes the Poplar1 construction; and Section 9 enumerates the security considerations for VDAFs.

1.1. Change Log

(*) Indicates a change that breaks wire compatibility with the previous draft.

03:

  • Define codepoints for (V)DAFs and use them for domain separation in Prio3 and Poplar1. (*)
  • Prio3: Align joint randomness computation with revised paper [BBCGGI19]. This change mitigates an attack on robustness. (*)
  • Prio3: Remove an intermediate PRG evaluation from query randomness generation. (*)
  • Add additional guidance for choosing FFT-friendly fields.

02:

  • Complete the initial specification of Poplar1.
  • Extend (V)DAF syntax to include a "public share" output by the Client and distributed to all of the Aggregators. This is to accommodate "extractable" IDPFs as required for Poplar1. (See [BBCGGI21], Section 4.3 for details.)
  • Extend (V)DAF syntax to allow the unsharding step to take into account the number of measurements aggregated.
  • Extend FLP syntax by adding a method for decoding the aggregate result from a vector of field elements. The new method takes into account the number of measurements.
  • Prio3: Align aggregate result computation with updated FLP syntax.
  • Prg: Add a method for statefully generating a vector of field elements.
  • Field: Require that field elements are fully reduced before decoding. (*)
  • Define new field Field255.

01:

  • Require that VDAFs specify serialization of aggregate shares.
  • Define Distributed Aggregation Functions (DAFs).
  • Prio3: Move proof verifier check from prep_next() to prep_shares_to_prep(). (*)
  • Remove public parameter and replace verification parameter with a "verification key" and "Aggregator ID".

2. Conventions and Definitions

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

Algorithms in this document are written in Python 3. Type hints are used to define input and output types. A fatal error in a program (e.g., failure to parse one of the function parameters) is usually handled by raising an exception.

A variable with type Bytes is a byte string. This document defines several byte-string constants. When comprised of printable ASCII characters, they are written as Python 3 byte-string literals (e.g., b'some constant string').

A global constant VERSION is defined, which algorithms are free to use as desired. Its value SHALL be b'vdaf-03'.

This document describes algorithms for multi-party computations in which the parties typically communicate over a network. Wherever a quantity is defined that must be be transmitted from one party to another, this document prescribes a particular encoding of that quantity as a byte string.

Some common functionalities:

3. Overview

                 +--------------+
           +---->| Aggregator 0 |----+
           |     +--------------+    |
           |             ^           |
           |             |           |
           |             V           |
           |     +--------------+    |
           | +-->| Aggregator 1 |--+ |
           | |   +--------------+  | |
+--------+-+ |           ^         | +->+-----------+
| Client |---+           |         +--->| Collector |--> Aggregate
+--------+-+                         +->+-----------+
           |            ...          |
           |                         |
           |             |           |
           |             V           |
           |    +----------------+   |
           +--->| Aggregator N-1 |---+
                +----------------+

      Input shares           Aggregate shares
Figure 1: Overall data flow of a (V)DAF

In a DAF- or VDAF-based private measurement system, we distinguish three types of actors: Clients, Aggregators, and Collectors. The overall flow of the measurement process is as follows:

Aggregators are a new class of actor relative to traditional measurement systems where clients submit measurements to a single server. They are critical for both the privacy properties of the system and, in the case of VDAFs, the correctness of the measurements obtained. The privacy properties of the system are assured by non-collusion among Aggregators, and Aggregators are the entities that perform validation of Client measurements. Thus clients trust Aggregators not to collude (typically it is required that at least one Aggregator is honest), and Collectors trust Aggregators to correctly run the protocol.

Within the bounds of the non-collusion requirements of a given (V)DAF instance, it is possible for the same entity to play more than one role. For example, the Collector could also act as an Aggregator, effectively using the other Aggregator(s) to augment a basic client-server protocol.

In this document, we describe the computations performed by the actors in this system. It is up to the higher-level protocol making use of the (V)DAF to arrange for the required information to be delivered to the proper actors in the proper sequence. In general, we assume that all communications are confidential and mutually authenticated, with the exception that Clients submitting measurements may be anonymous.

4. Definition of DAFs

By way of a gentle introduction to VDAFs, this section describes a simpler class of schemes called Distributed Aggregation Functions (DAFs). Unlike VDAFs, DAFs do not provide verifiability of the computation. Clients must therefore be trusted to compute their input shares correctly. Because of this fact, the use of a DAF is NOT RECOMMENDED for most applications. See Section 9 for additional discussion.

A DAF scheme is used to compute a particular "aggregation function" over a set of measurements generated by Clients. Depending on the aggregation function, the Collector might select an "aggregation parameter" and disseminates it to the Aggregators. The semantics of this parameter is specific to the aggregation function, but in general it is used to represent the set of "queries" that can be made on the measurement set. For example, the aggregation parameter is used to represent the candidate prefixes in Poplar1 Section 8.

Execution of a DAF has four distinct stages:

Sharding and Preparation are done once per measurement. Aggregation and Unsharding are done over a batch of measurements (more precisely, over the recovered output shares).

A concrete DAF specifies an algorithm for the computation needed in each of these stages. The interface of each algorithm is defined in the remainder of this section. In addition, a concrete DAF defines the associated constants and types enumerated in the following table.

Table 1: Constants and types defined by each concrete DAF.
Parameter Description
ID Algorithm identifier for this DAF.
SHARES Number of input shares into which each measurement is sharded
Measurement Type of each measurement
AggParam Type of aggregation parameter
OutShare Type of each output share
AggResult Type of the aggregate result

These types define some of the inputs and outputs of DAF methods at various stages of the computation. Observe that only the measurements, output shares, the aggregate result, and the aggregation parameter have an explicit type. All other values --- in particular, the input shares and the aggregate shares --- have type Bytes and are treated as opaque byte strings. This is because these values must be transmitted between parties over a network.

Each DAF is identified by a unique, 32-bit integer ID. Identifiers for each (V)DAF specified in this document are defined in Table 16.

4.1. Sharding

In order to protect the privacy of its measurements, a DAF Client shards its measurements into a sequence of input shares. The measurement_to_input_shares method is used for this purpose.

  • Daf.measurement_to_input_shares(input: Measurement) -> (Bytes, Vec[Bytes]) is the randomized input-distribution algorithm run by each Client. It consumes the measurement and produces a "public share", distributed to each of the Aggregators, and a corresponding sequence of input shares, one for each Aggregator. The length of the output vector MUST be SHARES.
    Client
    ======

    measurement
      |
      V
    +----------------------------------------------+
    | measurement_to_input_shares                  |
    +----------------------------------------------+
      |              |              ...  |
      V              V                   V
     input_share_0  input_share_1       input_share_[SHARES-1]
      |              |              ...  |
      V              V                   V
    Aggregator 0   Aggregator 1        Aggregator SHARES-1
Figure 2: The Client divides its measurement into input shares and distributes them to the Aggregators.

4.2. Preparation

Once an Aggregator has received the public share and one of the input shares, the next step is to prepare the input share for aggregation. This is accomplished using the following algorithm:

  • Daf.prep(agg_id: Unsigned, agg_param: AggParam, public_share: Bytes, input_share: Bytes) -> OutShare is the deterministic preparation algorithm. It takes as input the public share and one of the input shares generated by a Client, the Aggregator's unique identifier, and the aggregation parameter selected by the Collector and returns an output share.

The protocol in which the DAF is used MUST ensure that the Aggregator's identifier is equal to the integer in range [0, SHARES) that matches the index of input_share in the sequence of input shares output by the Client.

4.3. Aggregation

Once an Aggregator holds output shares for a batch of measurements (where batches are defined by the application), it combines them into a share of the desired aggregate result:

  • Daf.out_shares_to_agg_share(agg_param: AggParam, out_shares: Vec[OutShare]) -> agg_share: Bytes is the deterministic aggregation algorithm. It is run by each Aggregator a set of recovered output shares.
    Aggregator 0    Aggregator 1        Aggregator SHARES-1
    ============    ============        ===================

    out_share_0_0   out_share_1_0       out_share_[SHARES-1]_0
    out_share_0_1   out_share_1_1       out_share_[SHARES-1]_1
    out_share_0_2   out_share_1_2       out_share_[SHARES-1]_2
         ...             ...                     ...
    out_share_0_B   out_share_1_B       out_share_[SHARES-1]_B
      |               |                   |
      V               V                   V
    +-----------+   +-----------+       +-----------+
    | out2agg   |   | out2agg   |   ... | out2agg   |
    +-----------+   +-----------+       +-----------+
      |               |                   |
      V               V                   V
    agg_share_0     agg_share_1         agg_share_[SHARES-1]
Figure 3: Aggregation of output shares. `B` indicates the number of measurements in the batch.

For simplicity, we have written this algorithm in a "one-shot" form, where all output shares for a batch are provided at the same time. Many DAFs may also support a "streaming" form, where shares are processed one at a time.

  • OPEN ISSUE It may be worthwhile to explicitly define the "streaming" API. See issue#47.

4.4. Unsharding

After the Aggregators have aggregated a sufficient number of output shares, each sends its aggregate share to the Collector, who runs the following algorithm to recover the following output:

  • Daf.agg_shares_to_result(agg_param: AggParam, agg_shares: Vec[Bytes], num_measurements: Unsigned) -> AggResult is run by the Collector in order to compute the aggregate result from the Aggregators' shares. The length of agg_shares MUST be SHARES. num_measurements is the number of measurements that contributed to each of the aggregate shares. This algorithm is deterministic.
    Aggregator 0    Aggregator 1        Aggregator SHARES-1
    ============    ============        ===================

    agg_share_0     agg_share_1         agg_share_[SHARES-1]
      |               |                   |
      V               V                   V
    +-----------------------------------------------+
    | agg_shares_to_result                          |
    +-----------------------------------------------+
      |
      V
    agg_result

    Collector
    =========
Figure 4: Computation of the final aggregate result from aggregate shares.
  • QUESTION Maybe the aggregation algorithms should be randomized in order to allow the Aggregators (or the Collector) to add noise for differential privacy. (See the security considerations of [DAP].) Or is this out-of-scope of this document? See https://github.com/ietf-wg-ppm/ppm-specification/issues/19.

4.5. Execution of a DAF

Securely executing a DAF involves emulating the following procedure.

def run_daf(Daf,
            agg_param: Daf.AggParam,
            measurements: Vec[Daf.Measurement]):
    out_shares = [ [] for j in range(Daf.SHARES) ]
    for measurement in measurements:
        # Each Client shards its measurement into input shares and
        # distributes them among the Aggregators.
        (public_share, input_shares) = \
            Daf.measurement_to_input_shares(measurement)

        # Each Aggregator prepares its input share for aggregation.
        for j in range(Daf.SHARES):
            out_shares[j].append(
                Daf.prep(j, agg_param, public_share, input_shares[j]))

    # Each Aggregator aggregates its output shares into an aggregate
    # share and sends it to the Collector.
    agg_shares = []
    for j in range(Daf.SHARES):
        agg_share_j = Daf.out_shares_to_agg_share(agg_param,
                                                  out_shares[j])
        agg_shares.append(agg_share_j)

    # Collector unshards the aggregate result.
    num_measurements = len(measurements)
    agg_result = Daf.agg_shares_to_result(agg_param, agg_shares,
                                          num_measurements)
    return agg_result
Figure 5: Execution of a DAF.

The inputs to this procedure are the same as the aggregation function computed by the DAF: An aggregation parameter and a sequence of measurements. The procedure prescribes how a DAF is executed in a "benign" environment in which there is no adversary and the messages are passed among the protocol participants over secure point-to-point channels. In reality, these channels need to be instantiated by some "wrapper protocol", such as [DAP], that realizes these channels using suitable cryptographic mechanisms. Moreover, some fraction of the Aggregators (or Clients) may be malicious and diverge from their prescribed behaviors. Section 9 describes the execution of the DAF in various adversarial environments and what properties the wrapper protocol needs to provide in each.

5. Definition of VDAFs

Like DAFs described in the previous section, a VDAF scheme is used to compute a particular aggregation function over a set of Client-generated measurements. Evaluation of a VDAF involves the same four stages as for DAFs: Sharding, Preparation, Aggregation, and Unsharding. However, the Preparation stage will require interaction among the Aggregators in order to facilitate verifiability of the computation's correctness. Accommodating this interaction will require syntactic changes.

Overall execution of a VDAF comprises the following stages:

In contrast to DAFs, the Preparation stage for VDAFs now performs an additional task: Verification of the validity of the recovered output shares. This process ensures that aggregating the output shares will not lead to a garbled aggregate result.

The remainder of this section defines the VDAF interface. The attributes are listed in Table 2 are defined by each concrete VDAF.

Table 2: Constants and types defined by each concrete VDAF.
Parameter Description
ID Algorithm identifier for this VDAF.
VERIFY_KEY_SIZE Size (in bytes) of the verification key (Section 5.2)
ROUNDS Number of rounds of communication during the Preparation stage (Section 5.2)
SHARES Number of input shares into which each measurement is sharded (Section 5.1)
Measurement Type of each measurement
AggParam Type of aggregation parameter
Prep State of each Aggregator during Preparation (Section 5.2)
OutShare Type of each output share
AggResult Type of the aggregate result

Similarly to DAFs (see {[sec-daf}}), any output of a VDAF method that must be transmitted from one party to another is treated as an opaque byte string. All other quantities are given a concrete type.

Each VDAF is identified by a unique, 32-bit integer ID. Identifiers for each (V)DAF specified in this document are defined in Table 16.

5.1. Sharding

Sharding is syntactically identical to DAFs (cf. Section 4.1):

  • Vdaf.measurement_to_input_shares(measurement: Measurement) -> (Bytes, Vec[Bytes]) is the randomized input-distribution algorithm run by each Client. It consumes the measurement and produces a public share, distributed to each of Aggregators, and the corresponding sequence of input shares, one for each Aggregator. Depending on the VDAF, the input shares may encode additional information used to verify the recovered output shares (e.g., the "proof shares" in Prio3 Section 7). The length of the output vector MUST be SHARES.

5.2. Preparation

To recover and verify output shares, the Aggregators interact with one another over ROUNDS rounds. Prior to each round, each Aggregator constructs an outbound message. Next, the sequence of outbound messages is combined into a single message, called a "preparation message". (Each of the outbound messages are called "preparation-message shares".) Finally, the preparation message is distributed to the Aggregators to begin the next round.

An Aggregator begins the first round with its input share and it begins each subsequent round with the previous preparation message. Its output in the last round is its output share and its output in each of the preceding rounds is a preparation-message share.

This process involves a value called the "aggregation parameter" used to map the input shares to output shares. The Aggregators need to agree on this parameter before they can begin preparing inputs for aggregation.

    Aggregator 0   Aggregator 1        Aggregator SHARES-1
    ============   ============        ===================

    input_share_0  input_share_1       input_share_[SHARES-1]
      |              |              ...  |
      V              V                   V
    +-----------+  +-----------+       +-----------+
    | prep_init |  | prep_init |       | prep_init |
    +-----------+  +------------+      +-----------+
      |              |              ...  |             \
      V              V                   V             |
    +-----------+  +-----------+       +-----------+   |
    | prep_next |  | prep_next |       | prep_next |   |
    +-----------+  +-----------+       +-----------+   |
      |              |              ...  |             |
      V              V                   V             | x ROUNDS
    +----------------------------------------------+   |
    | prep_shares_to_prep                          |   |
    +----------------------------------------------+   |
                     |                                 |
      +--------------+-------------------+             |
      |              |              ...  |             |
      V              V                   V             /
     ...            ...                 ...
      |              |                   |
      V              V                   V
    +-----------+  +-----------+       +-----------+
    | prep_next |  | prep_next |       | prep_next |
    +-----------+  +-----------+       +-----------+
      |              |              ...  |
      V              V                   V
    out_share_0    out_share_1         out_share_[SHARES-1]
Figure 6: VDAF preparation process on the input shares for a single measurement. At the end of the computation, each Aggregator holds an output share or an error.

To facilitate the preparation process, a concrete VDAF implements the following class methods:

  • Vdaf.prep_init(verify_key: Bytes, agg_id: Unsigned, agg_param: AggParam, nonce: Bytes, public_share: Bytes, input_share: Bytes) -> Prep is the deterministic preparation-state initialization algorithm run by each Aggregator to begin processing its input share into an output share. Its inputs are the shared verification key (verify_key), the Aggregator's unique identifier (agg_id), the aggregation parameter (agg_param), the nonce provided by the environment (nonce, see Figure 7), and the public share (public_share) and one of the input shares generated by the client (input_share). Its output is the Aggregator's initial preparation state.

    The length of verify_key MUST be VERIFY_KEY_SIZE. It is up to the high level protocol in which the VDAF is used to arrange for the distribution of the verification key among the Aggregators prior to the start of this phase of VDAF evaluation.

    • OPEN ISSUE What security properties do we need for this key exchange? See issue#18.

    Protocols using the VDAF MUST ensure that the Aggregator's identifier is equal to the integer in range [0, SHARES) that matches the index of input_share in the sequence of input shares output by the Client. In addition, protocols MUST ensure that public share consumed by each of the Aggregators is identical. This is security critical for VDAFs such as Poplar1 that require an extractable distributed point function. (See Section 8 for details.)

  • Vdaf.prep_next(prep: Prep, inbound: Optional[Bytes]) -> Union[Tuple[Prep, Bytes], OutShare] is the deterministic preparation-state update algorithm run by each Aggregator. It updates the Aggregator's preparation state (prep) and returns either its next preparation state and its message share for the current round or, if this is the last round, its output share. An exception is raised if a valid output share could not be recovered. The input of this algorithm is the inbound preparation message or, if this is the first round, None.
  • Vdaf.prep_shares_to_prep(agg_param: AggParam, prep_shares: Vec[Bytes]) -> Bytes is the deterministic preparation-message pre-processing algorithm. It combines the preparation-message shares generated by the Aggregators in the previous round into the preparation message consumed by each in the next round.

In effect, each Aggregator moves through a linear state machine with ROUNDS+1 states. The Aggregator enters the first state on using the initialization algorithm, and the update algorithm advances the Aggregator to the next state. Thus, in addition to defining the number of rounds (ROUNDS), a VDAF instance defines the state of the Aggregator after each round.

  • TODO Consider how to bake this "linear state machine" condition into the syntax. Given that Python 3 is used as our pseudocode, it's easier to specify the preparation state using a class.

The preparation-state update accomplishes two tasks: recovery of output shares from the input shares and ensuring that the recovered output shares are valid. The abstraction boundary is drawn so that an Aggregator only recovers an output share if it is deemed valid (at least, based on the Aggregator's view of the protocol). Another way to draw this boundary would be to have the Aggregators recover output shares first, then verify that they are valid. However, this would allow the possibility of misusing the API by, say, aggregating an invalid output share. Moreover, in protocols like Prio+ [AGJOP21] based on oblivious transfer, it is necessary for the Aggregators to interact in order to recover aggregatable output shares at all.

Note that it is possible for a VDAF to specify ROUNDS == 0, in which case each Aggregator runs the preparation-state update algorithm once and immediately recovers its output share without interacting with the other Aggregators. However, most, if not all, constructions will require some amount of interaction in order to ensure validity of the output shares (while also maintaining privacy).

  • OPEN ISSUE accommodating 0-round VDAFs may require syntax changes if, for example, public keys are required. On the other hand, we could consider defining this class of schemes as a different primitive. See issue#77.

5.3. Aggregation

VDAF Aggregation is identical to DAF Aggregation (cf. Section 4.3):

  • Vdaf.out_shares_to_agg_share(agg_param: AggParam, out_shares: Vec[OutShare]) -> agg_share: Bytes is the deterministic aggregation algorithm. It is run by each Aggregator over the output shares it has computed over a batch of measurement inputs.

The data flow for this stage is illustrated in Figure 3. Here again, we have the aggregation algorithm in a "one-shot" form, where all shares for a batch are provided at the same time. VDAFs typically also support a "streaming" form, where shares are processed one at a time.

5.4. Unsharding

VDAF Unsharding is identical to DAF Unsharding (cf. Section 4.4):

  • Vdaf.agg_shares_to_result(agg_param: AggParam, agg_shares: Vec[Bytes], num_measurements: Unsigned) -> AggResult is run by the Collector in order to compute the aggregate result from the Aggregators' shares. The length of agg_shares MUST be SHARES. num_measurements is the number of measurements that contributed to each of the aggregate shares. This algorithm is deterministic.

The data flow for this stage is illustrated in Figure 4.

5.5. Execution of a VDAF

Secure execution of a VDAF involves simulating the following procedure.

def run_vdaf(Vdaf,
             agg_param: Vdaf.AggParam,
             nonces: Vec[Bytes],
             measurements: Vec[Vdaf.Measurement]):
    # Generate the long-lived verification key.
    verify_key = gen_rand(Vdaf.VERIFY_KEY_SIZE)

    out_shares = []
    for (nonce, measurement) in zip(nonces, measurements):
        # Each Client shards its measurement into input shares.
        (public_share, input_shares) = \
            Vdaf.measurement_to_input_shares(measurement)

        # Each Aggregator initializes its preparation state.
        prep_states = []
        for j in range(Vdaf.SHARES):
            state = Vdaf.prep_init(verify_key, j,
                                   agg_param,
                                   nonce,
                                   public_share,
                                   input_shares[j])
            prep_states.append(state)

        # Aggregators recover their output shares.
        inbound = None
        for i in range(Vdaf.ROUNDS+1):
            outbound = []
            for j in range(Vdaf.SHARES):
                out = Vdaf.prep_next(prep_states[j], inbound)
                if i < Vdaf.ROUNDS:
                    (prep_states[j], out) = out
                outbound.append(out)
            # This is where we would send messages over the
            # network in a distributed VDAF computation.
            if i < Vdaf.ROUNDS:
                inbound = Vdaf.prep_shares_to_prep(agg_param,
                                                   outbound)

        # The final outputs of prepare phase are the output shares.
        out_shares.append(outbound)

    # Each Aggregator aggregates its output shares into an
    # aggregate share. In a distributed VDAF computation, the
    # aggregate shares are sent over the network.
    agg_shares = []
    for j in range(Vdaf.SHARES):
        out_shares_j = [out[j] for out in out_shares]
        agg_share_j = Vdaf.out_shares_to_agg_share(agg_param,
                                                   out_shares_j)
        agg_shares.append(agg_share_j)

    # Collector unshards the aggregate.
    num_measurements = len(measurements)
    agg_result = Vdaf.agg_shares_to_result(agg_param, agg_shares,
                                           num_measurements)
    return agg_result
Figure 7: Execution of a VDAF.

The inputs to this algorithm are the aggregation parameter, a list of measurements, and a nonce for each measurement. This document does not specify how the nonces are chosen, but security requires that the nonces be unique. See Section 9 for details. As explained in Section 4.5, the secure execution of a VDAF requires the application to instantiate secure channels between each of the protocol participants.

6. Preliminaries

This section describes the primitives that are common to the VDAFs specified in this document.

6.1. Finite Fields

Both Prio3 and Poplar1 use finite fields of prime order. Finite field elements are represented by a class Field with the following associated parameters:

  • MODULUS: Unsigned is the prime modulus that defines the field.
  • ENCODED_SIZE: Unsigned is the number of bytes used to encode a field element as a byte string.

A concrete Field also implements the following class methods:

  • Field.zeros(length: Unsigned) -> output: Vec[Field] returns a vector of zeros. The length of output MUST be length.
  • Field.rand_vec(length: Unsigned) -> output: Vec[Field] returns a vector of random field elements. The length of output MUST be length.

A field element is an instance of a concrete Field. The concrete class defines the usual arithmetic operations on field elements. In addition, it defines the following instance method for converting a field element to an unsigned integer:

  • elem.as_unsigned() -> Unsigned returns the integer representation of field element elem.

Likewise, each concrete Field implements a constructor for converting an unsigned integer into a field element:

  • Field(integer: Unsigned) returns integer represented as a field element. The value of integer MUST be less than Field.MODULUS.

Finally, each concrete Field has two derived class methods, one for encoding a vector of field elements as a byte string and another for decoding a vector of field elements.

def encode_vec(Field, data: Vec[Field]) -> Bytes:
    encoded = Bytes()
    for x in data:
        encoded += I2OSP(x.as_unsigned(), Field.ENCODED_SIZE)
    return encoded

def decode_vec(Field, encoded: Bytes) -> Vec[Field]:
    L = Field.ENCODED_SIZE
    if len(encoded) % L != 0:
        raise ERR_DECODE

    vec = []
    for i in range(0, len(encoded), L):
        encoded_x = encoded[i:i+L]
        x = OS2IP(encoded_x)
        if x >= Field.MODULUS:
            raise ERR_DECODE # Integer is larger than modulus
        vec.append(Field(x))
    return vec
Figure 8: Derived class methods for finite fields.

6.1.1. Auxiliary Functions

The following auxiliary functions on vectors of field elements are used in the remainder of this document. Note that an exception is raised by each function if the operands are not the same length.

# Compute the inner product of the operands.
def inner_product(left: Vec[Field], right: Vec[Field]) -> Field:
    return sum(map(lambda x: x[0] * x[1], zip(left, right)))

# Subtract the right operand from the left and return the result.
def vec_sub(left: Vec[Field], right: Vec[Field]):
    return list(map(lambda x: x[0] - x[1], zip(left, right)))

# Add the right operand to the left and return the result.
def vec_add(left: Vec[Field], right: Vec[Field]):
    return list(map(lambda x: x[0] + x[1], zip(left, right)))
Figure 9: Common functions for finite fields.

6.1.2. FFT-Friendly Fields

Some VDAFs require fields that are suitable for efficient computation of the discrete Fourier transform, as this allows for fast polynomial interpolation. (One example is Prio3 (Section 7) when instantiated with the generic FLP of Section 7.3.3.) Specifically, a field is said to be "FFT-friendly" if, in addition to satisfying the interface described in Section 6.1, it implements the following method:

  • Field.gen() -> Field returns the generator of a large subgroup of the multiplicative group. To be FFT-friendly, the order of this subgroup NUST be a power of 2. In addition, the size of the subgroup dictates how large interpolated polynomials can be. It is RECOMMENDED that a generator is chosen with order at least 2^20.

FFT-friendly fields also define the following parameter:

  • GEN_ORDER: Unsigned is the order of a multiplicative subgroup generated by Field.gen().

6.1.3. Parameters

The tables below define finite fields used in the remainder of this document.

Table 3: Field64, an FFT-friendly field.
Parameter Value
MODULUS 2^32 * 4294967295 + 1
ENCODED_SIZE 8
Generator 7^4294967295
GEN_ORDER 2^32
Table 4: Field128, an FFT-friendly field.
Parameter Value
MODULUS 2^66 * 4611686018427387897 + 1
ENCODED_SIZE 16
Generator 7^4611686018427387897
GEN_ORDER 2^66
Table 5: Field255.
Parameter Value
MODULUS 2^255 - 19
ENCODED_SIZE 32
  • OPEN ISSUE We currently use big-endian for encoding field elements. However, for implementations of GF(2^255-19), little endian is more common. See issue#90.

6.2. Pseudorandom Generators

A pseudorandom generator (PRG) is used to expand a short, (pseudo)random seed into a long string of pseudorandom bits. A PRG suitable for this document implements the interface specified in this section. Concrete constructions are described in the subsections that follow.

PRGs are defined by a class Prg with the following associated parameter:

  • SEED_SIZE: Unsigned is the size (in bytes) of a seed.

A concrete Prg implements the following class method:

  • Prg(seed: Bytes, info: Bytes) constructs an instance of Prg from the given seed and info string. The seed MUST be of length SEED_SIZE and MUST be generated securely (i.e., it is either the output of gen_rand or a previous invocation of the PRG). The info string is used for domain separation.
  • prg.next(length: Unsigned) returns the next length bytes of output of PRG. If the seed was securely generated, the output can be treated as pseudorandom.

Each Prg has two derived class methods. The first is used to derive a fresh seed from an existing one. The second is used to compute a sequence of pseudorandom field elements. For each method, the seed MUST be of length SEED_SIZE and MUST be generated securely (i.e., it is either the output of gen_rand or a previous invocation of the PRG).

# Derive a new seed.
def derive_seed(Prg, seed: Bytes, info: Bytes) -> bytes:
    prg = Prg(seed, info)
    return prg.next(Prg.SEED_SIZE)

# Output the next `length` pseudorandom elements of `Field`.
def next_vec(self, Field, length: Unsigned):
    m = next_power_of_2(Field.MODULUS) - 1
    vec = []
    while len(vec) < length:
        x = OS2IP(self.next(Field.ENCODED_SIZE))
        x &= m
        if x < Field.MODULUS:
            vec.append(Field(x))
    return vec

# Expand the input `seed` into vector of `length` field elements.
def expand_into_vec(Prg,
                    Field,
                    seed: Bytes,
                    info: Bytes,
                    length: Unsigned):
    prg = Prg(seed, info)
    return prg.next_vec(Field, length)
Figure 10: Derived class methods for PRGs.

6.2.1. PrgAes128

  • OPEN ISSUE Phillipp points out that a fixed-key mode of AES may be more performant (https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/074.pdf). See issue#32.

  • TODO(issue #106) Decide if it's safe to model this construction as a random oracle. PrgAes128.derive_seed() is used for the Fiat-Shamir heuristic in Prio3 (Section 7). A fixed-key is used for this step (the all-zero string). A reasonable starting point would be to model AES as an ideal cipher.

Our first construction, PrgAes128, converts a blockcipher, namely AES-128, into a PRG. Seed expansion involves two steps. In the first step, CMAC [RFC4493] is applied to the seed and info string to get a fresh key. In the second step, the fresh key is used in CTR-mode to produce a key stream for generating the output. A fixed initialization vector (IV) is used.

class PrgAes128:

    SEED_SIZE: Unsigned = 16

    def __init__(self, seed, info):
        self.length_consumed = 0

        # Use CMAC as a pseudorandom function to derive a key.
        self.key = AES128-CMAC(seed, info)

    def next(self, length):
        self.length_consumed += length

        # CTR-mode encryption of the all-zero string of the desired
        # length and using a fixed, all-zero IV.
        stream = AES128-CTR(key, zeros(16), zeros(self.length_consumed))
        return stream[-length:]
Figure 11: Definition of PRG PrgAes128.

7. Prio3

This section describes Prio3, a VDAF for Prio [CGB17]. Prio is suitable for a wide variety of aggregation functions, including (but not limited to) sum, mean, standard deviation, estimation of quantiles (e.g., median), and linear regression. In fact, the scheme described in this section is compatible with any aggregation function that has the following structure:

At a high level, Prio3 distributes this computation as follows. Each Client first shards its measurement by first encoding it, then splitting the vector into secret shares and sending a share to each Aggregator. Next, in the preparation phase, the Aggregators carry out a multi-party computation to determine if their shares correspond to a valid input (as determined by the arithmetic circuit). This computation involves a "proof" of validity generated by the Client. Next, each Aggregator sums up its input shares locally. Finally, the Collector sums up the aggregate shares and computes the aggregate result.

This VDAF does not have an aggregation parameter. Instead, the output share is derived from the input share by applying a fixed map. See Section 8 for an example of a VDAF that makes meaningful use of the aggregation parameter.

As the name implies, Prio3 is a descendant of the original Prio construction. A second iteration was deployed in the [ENPA] system, and like the VDAF described here, the ENPA system was built from techniques introduced in [BBCGGI19] that significantly improve communication cost. That system was specialized for a particular aggregation function; the goal of Prio3 is to provide the same level of generality as the original construction.

The core component of Prio3 is a "Fully Linear Proof (FLP)" system. Introduced by [BBCGGI19], the FLP encapsulates the functionality required for encoding and validating inputs. Prio3 can be thought of as a transformation of a particular class of FLPs into a VDAF.

The remainder of this section is structured as follows. The syntax for FLPs is described in Section 7.1. The generic transformation of an FLP into Prio3 is specified in Section 7.2. Next, a concrete FLP suitable for any validity circuit is specified in Section 7.3. Finally, instantiations of Prio3 for various types of measurements are specified in Section 7.4. Test vectors can be found in Appendix "Test Vectors".

7.1. Fully Linear Proof (FLP) Systems

Conceptually, an FLP is a two-party protocol executed by a prover and a verifier. In actual use, however, the prover's computation is carried out by the Client, and the verifier's computation is distributed among the Aggregators. The Client generates a "proof" of its input's validity and distributes shares of the proof to the Aggregators. Each Aggregator then performs some a computation on its input share and proof share locally and sends the result to the other Aggregators. Combining the exchanged messages allows each Aggregator to decide if it holds a share of a valid input. (See Section 7.2 for details.)

As usual, we will describe the interface implemented by a concrete FLP in terms of an abstract base class Flp that specifies the set of methods and parameters a concrete FLP must provide.

The parameters provided by a concrete FLP are listed in Table 6.

Table 6: Constants and types defined by a concrete FLP.
Parameter Description
PROVE_RAND_LEN Length of the prover randomness, the number of random field elements consumed by the prover when generating a proof
QUERY_RAND_LEN Length of the query randomness, the number of random field elements consumed by the verifier
JOINT_RAND_LEN Length of the joint randomness, the number of random field elements consumed by both the prover and verifier
INPUT_LEN Length of the encoded measurement (Section 7.1.1)
OUTPUT_LEN Length of the aggregatable output (Section 7.1.1)
PROOF_LEN Length of the proof
VERIFIER_LEN Length of the verifier message generated by querying the input and proof
Measurement Type of the measurement
AggResult Type of the aggregate result
Field As defined in (Section 6.1)

An FLP specifies the following algorithms for generating and verifying proofs of validity (encoding is described below in Section 7.1.1):

  • Flp.prove(input: Vec[Field], prove_rand: Vec[Field], joint_rand: Vec[Field]) -> Vec[Field] is the deterministic proof-generation algorithm run by the prover. Its inputs are the encoded input, the "prover randomness" prove_rand, and the "joint randomness" joint_rand. The prover randomness is used only by the prover, but the joint randomness is shared by both the prover and verifier.
  • Flp.query(input: Vec[Field], proof: Vec[Field], query_rand: Vec[Field], joint_rand: Vec[Field], num_shares: Unsigned) -> Vec[Field] is the query-generation algorithm run by the verifier. This is used to "query" the input and proof. The result of the query (i.e., the output of this function) is called the "verifier message". In addition to the input and proof, this algorithm takes as input the query randomness query_rand and the joint randomness joint_rand. The former is used only by the verifier. num_shares specifies how many input and proof shares were generated.
  • Flp.decide(verifier: Vec[Field]) -> Bool is the deterministic decision algorithm run by the verifier. It takes as input the verifier message and outputs a boolean indicating if the input from which it was generated is valid.

Our application requires that the FLP is "fully linear" in the sense defined in [BBCGGI19]. As a practical matter, what this property implies is that, when run on a share of the input and proof, the query-generation algorithm outputs a share of the verifier message. Furthermore, the "strong zero-knowledge" property of the FLP system ensures that the verifier message reveals nothing about the input's validity. Therefore, to decide if an input is valid, the Aggregators will run the query-generation algorithm locally, exchange verifier shares, combine them to recover the verifier message, and run the decision algorithm.

The query-generation algorithm includes a parameter num_shares that specifies the number of shares of the input and proof that were generated. If these data are not secret shared, then num_shares == 1. This parameter is useful for certain FLP constructions. For example, the FLP in Section 7.3 is defined in terms of an arithmetic circuit; when the circuit contains constants, it is sometimes necessary to normalize those constants to ensure that the circuit's output, when run on a valid input, is the same regardless of the number of shares.

An FLP is executed by the prover and verifier as follows:

def run_flp(Flp, inp: Vec[Flp.Field], num_shares: Unsigned):
    joint_rand = Flp.Field.rand_vec(Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN)
    prove_rand = Flp.Field.rand_vec(Flp.PROVE_RAND_LEN)
    query_rand = Flp.Field.rand_vec(Flp.QUERY_RAND_LEN)

    # Prover generates the proof.
    proof = Flp.prove(inp, prove_rand, joint_rand)

    # Verifier queries the input and proof.
    verifier = Flp.query(inp, proof, query_rand, joint_rand, num_shares)

    # Verifier decides if the input is valid.
    return Flp.decide(verifier)
Figure 12: Execution of an FLP.

The proof system is constructed so that, if input is a valid input, then run_flp(Flp, input, 1) always returns True. On the other hand, if input is invalid, then as long as joint_rand and query_rand are generated uniform randomly, the output is False with overwhelming probability.

We remark that [BBCGGI19] defines a much larger class of fully linear proof systems than we consider here. In particular, what is called an "FLP" here is called a 1.5-round, public-coin, interactive oracle proof system in their paper.

7.1.1. Encoding the Input

The type of measurement being aggregated is defined by the FLP. Hence, the FLP also specifies a method of encoding raw measurements as a vector of field elements:

  • Flp.encode(measurement: Measurement) -> Vec[Field] encodes a raw measurement as a vector of field elements. The return value MUST be of length INPUT_LEN.

For some FLPs, the encoded input also includes redundant field elements that are useful for checking the proof, but which are not needed after the proof has been checked. An example is the "integer sum" data type from [CGB17] in which an integer in range [0, 2^k) is encoded as a vector of k field elements (this type is also defined in Section 7.4.2). After consuming this vector, all that is needed is the integer it represents. Thus the FLP defines an algorithm for truncating the input to the length of the aggregated output:

  • Flp.truncate(input: Vec[Field]) -> Vec[Field] maps an encoded input to an aggregatable output. The length of the input MUST be INPUT_LEN and the length of the output MUST be OUTPUT_LEN.

Once the aggregate shares have been computed and combined together, their sum can be converted into the aggregate result. This could be a projection from the FLP's field to the integers, or it could include additional post-processing.

  • Flp.decode(output: Vec[Field], num_measurements: Unsigned) -> AggResult maps a sum of aggregate shares to an aggregate result. The length of the input MUST be OUTPUT_LEN. num_measurements is the number of measurements that contributed to the aggregated output.

We remark that, taken together, these three functionalities correspond roughly to the notion of "Affine-aggregatable encodings (AFEs)" from [CGB17].

7.2. Construction

This section specifies Prio3, an implementation of the Vdaf interface (Section 5). It has two generic parameters: an Flp (Section 7.1) and a Prg (Section 6.2). The associated constants and types required by the Vdaf interface are defined in Table 7. The methods required for sharding, preparation, aggregation, and unsharding are described in the remaining subsections.

Table 7: Associated parameters for the Prio3 VDAF.
Parameter Value
VERIFY_KEY_SIZE Prg.SEED_SIZE
ROUNDS 1
SHARES in [2, 255)
Measurement Flp.Measurement
AggParam None
Prep Tuple[Vec[Flp.Field], Optional[Bytes], Bytes]
OutShare Vec[Flp.Field]
AggResult Flp.AggResult

7.2.1. Sharding

Recall from Section 7.1 that the FLP syntax calls for "joint randomness" shared by the prover (i.e., the Client) and the verifier (i.e., the Aggregators). VDAFs have no such notion. Instead, the Client derives the joint randomness from its input in a way that allows the Aggregators to reconstruct it from their input shares. (This idea is based on the Fiat-Shamir heuristic and is described in Section 6.2.3 of [BBCGGI19].)

The input-distribution algorithm involves the following steps:

  1. Encode the Client's raw measurement as an input for the FLP
  2. Shard the input into a sequence of input shares
  3. Derive the joint randomness from the input shares
  4. Run the FLP proof-generation algorithm using the derived joint randomness
  5. Shard the proof into a sequence of proof shares

The algorithm is specified below. Notice that only one set of input and proof shares (called the "leader" shares below) are vectors of field elements. The other shares (called the "helper" shares) are represented instead by PRG seeds, which are expanded into vectors of field elements.

The code refers to auxiliary functions for encoding the shares and deriving the joint randomness. In particular, encode_leader_share and encode_helper_share are used for encoding and joint_rand is used for joint randomness. These are defined in Section 7.2.5.

def measurement_to_input_shares(Prio3, measurement):
    # Domain separation tag for PRG info string
    dst = VERSION + I2OSP(Prio3.ID, 4)
    inp = Prio3.Flp.encode(measurement)

    # Generate input shares.
    leader_input_share = inp
    k_helper_input_shares = []
    k_helper_blinds = []
    k_joint_rand_parts = []
    for j in range(Prio3.SHARES-1):
        k_blind = gen_rand(Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE)
        k_share = gen_rand(Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE)
        helper_input_share = Prio3.Prg.expand_into_vec(
            Prio3.Flp.Field,
            k_share,
            dst + byte(j+1),
            Prio3.Flp.INPUT_LEN
        )
        leader_input_share = vec_sub(leader_input_share,
                                     helper_input_share)
        encoded = Prio3.Flp.Field.encode_vec(helper_input_share)
        k_joint_rand_part = Prio3.Prg.derive_seed(
            k_blind, dst + byte(j+1) + encoded)
        k_helper_input_shares.append(k_share)
        k_helper_blinds.append(k_blind)
        k_joint_rand_parts.append(k_joint_rand_part)
    k_leader_blind = gen_rand(Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE)
    encoded = Prio3.Flp.Field.encode_vec(leader_input_share)
    k_leader_joint_rand_part = Prio3.Prg.derive_seed(
        k_leader_blind, dst + byte(0) + encoded)
    k_joint_rand_parts.insert(0, k_leader_joint_rand_part)

    # Compute joint randomness seed.
    k_joint_rand = Prio3.joint_rand(k_joint_rand_parts)

    # Generate the proof shares.
    prove_rand = Prio3.Prg.expand_into_vec(
        Prio3.Flp.Field,
        gen_rand(Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE),
        dst,
        Prio3.Flp.PROVE_RAND_LEN
    )
    joint_rand = Prio3.Prg.expand_into_vec(
        Prio3.Flp.Field,
        k_joint_rand,
        dst,
        Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN
    )
    proof = Prio3.Flp.prove(inp, prove_rand, joint_rand)
    leader_proof_share = proof
    k_helper_proof_shares = []
    for j in range(Prio3.SHARES-1):
        k_share = gen_rand(Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE)
        k_helper_proof_shares.append(k_share)
        helper_proof_share = Prio3.Prg.expand_into_vec(
            Prio3.Flp.Field,
            k_share,
            dst + byte(j+1),
            Prio3.Flp.PROOF_LEN
        )
        leader_proof_share = vec_sub(leader_proof_share,
                                     helper_proof_share)

    # The Leader's "hint" consists of the joint randomness parts of the
    # other Aggregators.
    k_leader_hint = k_joint_rand_parts[1:]
    input_shares = []
    input_shares.append(Prio3.encode_leader_share(
        leader_input_share,
        leader_proof_share,
        k_leader_blind,
        k_leader_hint,
    ))
    for j in range(Prio3.SHARES-1):
        # Each Helper's hint consists of the joint randomness part of the
        # other Aggregators.
        k_helper_hint = k_joint_rand_parts[:j+1] + \
                        k_joint_rand_parts[j+2:]
        input_shares.append(Prio3.encode_helper_share(
            k_helper_input_shares[j],
            k_helper_proof_shares[j],
            k_helper_blinds[j],
            k_helper_hint,
        ))
    return (b'', input_shares)
Figure 13: Input-distribution algorithm for Prio3.

7.2.2. Preparation

This section describes the process of recovering output shares from the input shares. The high-level idea is that each Aggregator first queries its input and proof share locally, then exchanges its verifier share with the other Aggregators. The verifier shares are then combined into the verifier message, which is used to decide whether to accept.

In addition, the Aggregators must ensure that they have all used the same joint randomness for the query-generation algorithm. The joint randomness is generated by a PRG seed. Each Aggregator derives a "part" of this seed from its input share and the "blind" generated by the client. The seed is derived by hashing together the parts, so before running the query-generation algorithm, it must first gather the parts derived by the other Aggregators.

In order to avoid extra round of communication, the Client sends each Aggregator a "hint" consisting of the other Aggregators' parts of the joint randomness seed. This leaves open the possibility that the Client cheated by, say, forcing the Aggregators to use joint randomness that biases the proof check procedure some way in its favor. To mitigate this, the Aggregators also check that they have all computed the same joint randomness seed before accepting their output shares. To do so, they exchange their parts of the joint randomness along with their verifier shares.

The algorithms required for preparation are defined as follows. These algorithms make use of methods defined in Section 7.2.5.

def prep_init(Prio3, verify_key, agg_id, _agg_param,
              nonce, _public_share, input_share):
    # Domain separation tag for PRG info string
    dst = VERSION + I2OSP(Prio3.ID, 4)

    (input_share, proof_share, k_blind, k_hint) = \
        Prio3.decode_leader_share(input_share) if agg_id == 0 else \
        Prio3.decode_helper_share(dst, agg_id, input_share)
    out_share = Prio3.Flp.truncate(input_share)

    # Compute joint randomness.
    joint_rand, k_joint_rand, k_joint_rand_part = [], None, None
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        encoded = Prio3.Flp.Field.encode_vec(input_share)
        k_joint_rand_part = Prio3.Prg.derive_seed(
            k_blind, dst + byte(agg_id) + encoded)
        k_joint_rand_parts = k_hint[:agg_id] + \
                             [k_joint_rand_part] + \
                             k_hint[agg_id:]
        k_joint_rand = Prio3.joint_rand(k_joint_rand_parts)
        joint_rand = Prio3.Prg.expand_into_vec(
            Prio3.Flp.Field,
            k_joint_rand,
            dst,
            Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN
        )

    # Query the input and proof share.
    query_rand = Prio3.Prg.expand_into_vec(
        Prio3.Flp.Field,
        verify_key,
        dst + byte(255) + nonce,
        Prio3.Flp.QUERY_RAND_LEN
    )
    verifier_share = Prio3.Flp.query(input_share,
                                     proof_share,
                                     query_rand,
                                     joint_rand,
                                     Prio3.SHARES)

    prep_msg = Prio3.encode_prep_share(verifier_share,
                                       k_joint_rand_part)
    return (out_share, k_joint_rand, prep_msg)

def prep_next(Prio3, prep, inbound):
    (out_share, k_joint_rand, prep_msg) = prep

    if inbound is None:
        return (prep, prep_msg)

    k_joint_rand_check = Prio3.decode_prep_msg(inbound)
    if k_joint_rand_check != k_joint_rand:
        raise ERR_VERIFY # joint randomness check failed

    return out_share

def prep_shares_to_prep(Prio3, _agg_param, prep_shares):
    dst = VERSION + I2OSP(Prio3.ID, 4)
    verifier = Prio3.Flp.Field.zeros(Prio3.Flp.VERIFIER_LEN)
    k_joint_rand_parts = []
    for encoded in prep_shares:
        (verifier_share, k_joint_rand_part) = \
            Prio3.decode_prep_share(encoded)

        verifier = vec_add(verifier, verifier_share)

        if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
            k_joint_rand_parts.append(k_joint_rand_part)

    if not Prio3.Flp.decide(verifier):
        raise ERR_VERIFY # proof verifier check failed

    k_joint_rand_check = None
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        k_joint_rand_check = Prio3.joint_rand(k_joint_rand_parts)
    return Prio3.encode_prep_msg(k_joint_rand_check)
Figure 14: Preparation state for Prio3.

7.2.3. Aggregation

Aggregating a set of output shares is simply a matter of adding up the vectors element-wise.

def out_shares_to_agg_share(Prio3, _agg_param, out_shares):
    agg_share = Prio3.Flp.Field.zeros(Prio3.Flp.OUTPUT_LEN)
    for out_share in out_shares:
        agg_share = vec_add(agg_share, out_share)
    return Prio3.Flp.Field.encode_vec(agg_share)
Figure 15: Aggregation algorithm for Prio3.

7.2.4. Unsharding

To unshard a set of aggregate shares, the Collector first adds up the vectors element-wise. It then converts each element of the vector into an integer.

def agg_shares_to_result(Prio3, _agg_param, agg_shares,
                         num_measurements):
    agg = Prio3.Flp.Field.zeros(Prio3.Flp.OUTPUT_LEN)
    for agg_share in agg_shares:
        agg = vec_add(agg, Prio3.Flp.Field.decode_vec(agg_share))
    return Prio3.Flp.decode(agg, num_measurements)
Figure 16: Computation of the aggregate result for Prio3.

7.2.5. Auxiliary Functions

def joint_rand(Prio3, k_joint_rand_parts):
    dst = VERSION + I2OSP(Prio3.ID, 4)
    return Prio3.Prg.derive_seed(
        zeros(Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE),
        dst + byte(255) + concat(k_joint_rand_parts))

def encode_leader_share(Prio3,
                        input_share,
                        proof_share,
                        k_blind,
                        k_hint):
    encoded = Bytes()
    encoded += Prio3.Flp.Field.encode_vec(input_share)
    encoded += Prio3.Flp.Field.encode_vec(proof_share)
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        encoded += k_blind
        encoded += concat(k_hint)
    return encoded

def decode_leader_share(Prio3, encoded):
    l = Prio3.Flp.Field.ENCODED_SIZE * Prio3.Flp.INPUT_LEN
    encoded_input_share, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    input_share = Prio3.Flp.Field.decode_vec(encoded_input_share)
    l = Prio3.Flp.Field.ENCODED_SIZE * Prio3.Flp.PROOF_LEN
    encoded_proof_share, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    proof_share = Prio3.Flp.Field.decode_vec(encoded_proof_share)
    l = Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE
    k_blind, k_hint = None, None
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        k_blind, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
        k_hint = []
        for _ in range(Prio3.SHARES-1):
            k_joint_rand_part, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
            k_hint.append(k_joint_rand_part)
    if len(encoded) != 0:
        raise ERR_DECODE
    return (input_share, proof_share, k_blind, k_hint)

def encode_helper_share(Prio3,
                        k_input_share,
                        k_proof_share,
                        k_blind,
                        k_hint):
    encoded = Bytes()
    encoded += k_input_share
    encoded += k_proof_share
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        encoded += k_blind
        encoded += concat(k_hint)
    return encoded

def decode_helper_share(Prio3, dst, agg_id, encoded):
    l = Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE
    k_input_share, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    input_share = Prio3.Prg.expand_into_vec(Prio3.Flp.Field,
                                            k_input_share,
                                            dst + byte(agg_id),
                                            Prio3.Flp.INPUT_LEN)
    k_proof_share, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    proof_share = Prio3.Prg.expand_into_vec(Prio3.Flp.Field,
                                            k_proof_share,
                                            dst + byte(agg_id),
                                            Prio3.Flp.PROOF_LEN)
    k_blind, k_hint = None, None
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        k_blind, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
        k_hint = []
        for _ in range(Prio3.SHARES-1):
            k_joint_rand_part, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
            k_hint.append(k_joint_rand_part)
    if len(encoded) != 0:
        raise ERR_DECODE
    return (input_share, proof_share, k_blind, k_hint)

def encode_prep_share(Prio3, verifier, k_joint_rand):
    encoded = Bytes()
    encoded += Prio3.Flp.Field.encode_vec(verifier)
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        encoded += k_joint_rand
    return encoded

def decode_prep_share(Prio3, encoded):
    l = Prio3.Flp.Field.ENCODED_SIZE * Prio3.Flp.VERIFIER_LEN
    encoded_verifier, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    verifier = Prio3.Flp.Field.decode_vec(encoded_verifier)
    k_joint_rand = None
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        l = Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE
        k_joint_rand, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    if len(encoded) != 0:
        raise ERR_DECODE
    return (verifier, k_joint_rand)

def encode_prep_msg(Prio3, k_joint_rand_check):
    encoded = Bytes()
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        encoded += k_joint_rand_check
    return encoded

def decode_prep_msg(Prio3, encoded):
    k_joint_rand_check = None
    if Prio3.Flp.JOINT_RAND_LEN > 0:
        l = Prio3.Prg.SEED_SIZE
        k_joint_rand_check, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    if len(encoded) != 0:
        raise ERR_DECODE
    return k_joint_rand_check
Figure 17: Helper functions required for Prio3.

7.3. A General-Purpose FLP

This section describes an FLP based on the construction from in [BBCGGI19], Section 4.2. We begin in Section 7.3.1 with an overview of their proof system and the extensions to their proof system made here. The construction is specified in Section 7.3.3.

  • OPEN ISSUE We're not yet sure if specifying this general-purpose FLP is desirable. It might be preferable to specify specialized FLPs for each data type that we want to standardize, for two reasons. First, clear and concise specifications are likely easier to write for specialized FLPs rather than the general one. Second, we may end up tailoring each FLP to the measurement type in a way that improves performance, but breaks compatibility with the general-purpose FLP.

    In any case, we can't make this decision until we know which data types to standardize, so for now, we'll stick with the general-purpose construction. The reference implementation can be found at https://github.com/cfrg/draft-irtf-cfrg-vdaf/tree/main/poc.

  • OPEN ISSUE Chris Wood points out that the this section reads more like a paper than a standard. Eventually we'll want to work this into something that is readily consumable by the CFRG.

7.3.1. Overview

In the proof system of [BBCGGI19], validity is defined via an arithmetic circuit evaluated over the input: If the circuit output is zero, then the input is deemed valid; otherwise, if the circuit output is non-zero, then the input is deemed invalid. Thus the goal of the proof system is merely to allow the verifier to evaluate the validity circuit over the input. For our application (Section 7), this computation is distributed among multiple Aggregators, each of which has only a share of the input.

Suppose for a moment that the validity circuit C is affine, meaning its only operations are addition and multiplication-by-constant. In particular, suppose the circuit does not contain a multiplication gate whose operands are both non-constant. Then to decide if an input x is valid, each Aggregator could evaluate C on its share of x locally, broadcast the output share to its peers, then combine the output shares locally to recover C(x). This is true because for any SHARES-way secret sharing of x it holds that

C(x_shares[0] + ... + x_shares[SHARES-1]) =
    C(x_shares[0]) + ... + C(x_shares[SHARES-1])

(Note that, for this equality to hold, it may be necessary to scale any constants in the circuit by SHARES.) However this is not the case if C is not-affine (i.e., it contains at least one multiplication gate whose operands are non-constant). In the proof system of [BBCGGI19], the proof is designed to allow the (distributed) verifier to compute the non-affine operations using only linear operations on (its share of) the input and proof.

To make this work, the proof system is restricted to validity circuits that exhibit a special structure. Specifically, an arithmetic circuit with "G-gates" (see [BBCGGI19], Definition 5.2) is composed of affine gates and any number of instances of a distinguished gate G, which may be non-affine. We will refer to this class of circuits as 'gadget circuits' and to G as the "gadget".

As an illustrative example, consider a validity circuit C that recognizes the set L = set([0], [1]). That is, C takes as input a length-1 vector x and returns 0 if x[0] is in [0,2) and outputs something else otherwise. This circuit can be expressed as the following degree-2 polynomial:

C(x) = (x[0] - 1) * x[0] = x[0]^2 - x[0]

This polynomial recognizes L because x[0]^2 = x[0] is only true if x[0] == 0 or x[0] == 1. Notice that the polynomial involves a non-affine operation, x[0]^2. In order to apply [BBCGGI19], Theorem 4.3, the circuit needs to be rewritten in terms of a gadget that subsumes this non-affine operation. For example, the gadget might be multiplication:

Mul(left, right) = left * right

The validity circuit can then be rewritten in terms of Mul like so:

C(x[0]) = Mul(x[0], x[0]) - x[0]

The proof system of [BBCGGI19] allows the verifier to evaluate each instance of the gadget (i.e., Mul(x[0], x[0]) in our example) using a linear function of the input and proof. The proof is constructed roughly as follows. Let C be the validity circuit and suppose the gadget is arity-L (i.e., it has L input wires.). Let wire[j-1,k-1] denote the value of the jth wire of the kth call to the gadget during the evaluation of C(x). Suppose there are M such calls and fix distinct field elements alpha[0], ..., alpha[M-1]. (We will require these points to have a special property, as we'll discuss in Section 7.3.1.1; but for the moment it is only important that they are distinct.)

The prover constructs from wire and alpha a polynomial that, when evaluated at alpha[k-1], produces the output of the kth call to the gadget. Let us call this the "gadget polynomial". Polynomial evaluation is linear, which means that, in the distributed setting, the Client can disseminate additive shares of the gadget polynomial that the Aggregators then use to compute additive shares of each gadget output, allowing each Aggregator to compute its share of C(x) locally.

There is one more wrinkle, however: It is still possible for a malicious prover to produce a gadget polynomial that would result in C(x) being computed incorrectly, potentially resulting in an invalid input being accepted. To prevent this, the verifier performs a probabilistic test to check that the gadget polynomial is well-formed. This test, and the procedure for constructing the gadget polynomial, are described in detail in Section 7.3.3.

7.3.1.1. Extensions

The FLP described in the next section extends the proof system [BBCGGI19], Section 4.2 in three ways.

First, the validity circuit in our construction includes an additional, random input (this is the "joint randomness" derived from the input shares in Prio3; see Section 7.2). This allows for circuit optimizations that trade a small soundness error for a shorter proof. For example, consider a circuit that recognizes the set of length-N vectors for which each element is either one or zero. A deterministic circuit could be constructed for this language, but it would involve a large number of multiplications that would result in a large proof. (See the discussion in [BBCGGI19], Section 5.2 for details). A much shorter proof can be constructed for the following randomized circuit:

C(inp, r) = r * Range2(inp[0]) + ... + r^N * Range2(inp[N-1])

(Note that this is a special case of [BBCGGI19], Theorem 5.2.) Here inp is the length-N input and r is a random field element. The gadget circuit Range2 is the "range-check" polynomial described above, i.e., Range2(x) = x^2 - x. The idea is that, if inp is valid (i.e., each inp[j] is in [0,2)), then the circuit will evaluate to 0 regardless of the value of r; but if inp[j] is not in [0,2) for some j, the output will be non-zero with high probability.

The second extension implemented by our FLP allows the validity circuit to contain multiple gadget types. (This generalization was suggested in [BBCGGI19], Remark 4.5.) For example, the following circuit is allowed, where Mul and Range2 are the gadgets defined above (the input has length N+1):

C(inp, r) = r * Range2(inp[0]) + ... + r^N * Range2(inp[N-1]) + \
            2^0 * inp[0]       + ... + 2^(N-1) * inp[N-1]     - \
            Mul(inp[N], inp[N])

Finally, [BBCGGI19], Theorem 4.3 makes no restrictions on the choice of the fixed points alpha[0], ..., alpha[M-1], other than to require that the points are distinct. In this document, the fixed points are chosen so that the gadget polynomial can be constructed efficiently using the Cooley-Tukey FFT ("Fast Fourier Transform") algorithm. Note that this requires the field to be "FFT-friendly" as defined in Section 6.1.2.

7.3.2. Validity Circuits

The FLP described in Section 7.3.3 is defined in terms of a validity circuit Valid that implements the interface described here.

A concrete Valid defines the following parameters:

Table 8: Validity circuit parameters.
Parameter Description
GADGETS A list of gadgets
GADGET_CALLS Number of times each gadget is called
INPUT_LEN Length of the input
OUTPUT_LEN Length of the aggregatable output
JOINT_RAND_LEN Length of the random input
Measurement The type of measurement
AggResult Type of the aggregate result
Field An FFT-friendly finite field as defined in Section 6.1.2

Each gadget G in GADGETS defines a constant DEGREE that specifies the circuit's "arithmetic degree". This is defined to be the degree of the polynomial that computes it. For example, the Mul circuit in Section 7.3.1 is defined by the polynomial Mul(x) = x * x, which has degree 2. Hence, the arithmetic degree of this gadget is 2.

Each gadget also defines a parameter ARITY that specifies the circuit's arity (i.e., the number of input wires).

A concrete Valid provides the following methods for encoding a measurement as an input vector, truncating an input vector to the length of an aggregatable output, and converting an aggregated output to an aggregate result:

  • Valid.encode(measurement: Measurement) -> Vec[Field] returns a vector of length INPUT_LEN representing a measurement.
  • Valid.truncate(input: Vec[Field]) -> Vec[Field] returns a vector of length OUTPUT_LEN representing an aggregatable output.
  • Valid.decode(output: Vec[Field], num_measurements: Unsigned) -> AggResult returns an aggregate result.

Finally, the following class methods are derived for each concrete Valid:

# Length of the prover randomness.
def prove_rand_len(Valid):
    return sum(map(lambda g: g.ARITY, Valid.GADGETS))

# Length of the query randomness.
def query_rand_len(Valid):
    return len(Valid.GADGETS)

# Length of the proof.
def proof_len(Valid):
    length = 0
    for (g, g_calls) in zip(Valid.GADGETS, Valid.GADGET_CALLS):
        P = next_power_of_2(1 + g_calls)
        length += g.ARITY + g.DEGREE * (P - 1) + 1
    return length

# Length of the verifier message.
def verifier_len(Valid):
    length = 1
    for g in Valid.GADGETS:
        length += g.ARITY + 1
    return length
Figure 18: Derived methods for validity circuits.

7.3.3. Construction

This section specifies FlpGeneric, an implementation of the Flp interface (Section 7.1). It has as a generic parameter a validity circuit Valid implementing the interface defined in Section 7.3.2.

  • NOTE A reference implementation can be found in https://github.com/cfrg/draft-irtf-cfrg-vdaf/blob/main/poc/flp_generic.sage.

The FLP parameters for FlpGeneric are defined in Table 9. The required methods for generating the proof, generating the verifier, and deciding validity are specified in the remaining subsections.

In the remainder, we let [n] denote the set {1, ..., n} for positive integer n. We also define the following constants:

  • Let H = len(Valid.GADGETS)
  • For each i in [H]:

    • Let G_i = Valid.GADGETS[i]
    • Let L_i = Valid.GADGETS[i].ARITY
    • Let M_i = Valid.GADGET_CALLS[i]
    • Let P_i = next_power_of_2(M_i+1)
    • Let alpha_i = Field.gen()^(Field.GEN_ORDER / P_i)
Table 9: FLP Parameters of FlpGeneric.
Parameter Value
PROVE_RAND_LEN Valid.prove_rand_len() (see Section 7.3.2)
QUERY_RAND_LEN Valid.query_rand_len() (see Section 7.3.2)
JOINT_RAND_LEN Valid.JOINT_RAND_LEN
INPUT_LEN Valid.INPUT_LEN
OUTPUT_LEN Valid.OUTPUT_LEN
PROOF_LEN Valid.proof_len() (see Section 7.3.2)
VERIFIER_LEN Valid.verifier_len() (see Section 7.3.2)
Measurement Valid.Measurement
Field Valid.Field
7.3.3.1. Proof Generation

On input inp, prove_rand, and joint_rand, the proof is computed as follows:

  1. For each i in [H] create an empty table wire_i.
  2. Partition the prover randomness prove_rand into subvectors seed_1, ..., seed_H where len(seed_i) == L_i for all i in [H]. Let us call these the "wire seeds" of each gadget.
  3. Evaluate Valid on input of inp and joint_rand, recording the inputs of each gadget in the corresponding table. Specifically, for every i in [H], set wire_i[j-1,k-1] to the value on the jth wire into the kth call to gadget G_i.
  4. Compute the "wire polynomials". That is, for every i in [H] and j in [L_i], construct poly_wire_i[j-1], the jth wire polynomial for the ith gadget, as follows:

    • Let w = [seed_i[j-1], wire_i[j-1,0], ..., wire_i[j-1,M_i-1]].
    • Let padded_w = w + Field.zeros(P_i - len(w)).
    • NOTE We pad w to the nearest power of 2 so that we can use FFT for interpolating the wire polynomials. Perhaps there is some clever math for picking wire_inp in a way that avoids having to pad.

    • Let poly_wire_i[j-1] be the lowest degree polynomial for which poly_wire_i[j-1](alpha_i^k) == padded_w[k] for all k in [P_i].
  5. Compute the "gadget polynomials". That is, for every i in [H]:

    • Let poly_gadget_i = G_i(poly_wire_i[0], ..., poly_wire_i[L_i-1]). That is, evaluate the circuit G_i on the wire polynomials for the ith gadget. (Arithmetic is in the ring of polynomials over Field.)

The proof is the vector proof = seed_1 + coeff_1 + ... + seed_H + coeff_H, where coeff_i is the vector of coefficients of poly_gadget_i for each i in [H].

7.3.3.2. Query Generation

On input of inp, proof, query_rand, and joint_rand, the verifier message is generated as follows:

  1. For every i in [H] create an empty table wire_i.
  2. Partition proof into the subvectors seed_1, coeff_1, ..., seed_H, coeff_H defined in Section 7.3.3.1.
  3. Evaluate Valid on input of inp and joint_rand, recording the inputs of each gadget in the corresponding table. This step is similar to the prover's step (3.) except the verifier does not evaluate the gadgets. Instead, it computes the output of the kth call to G_i by evaluating poly_gadget_i(alpha_i^k). Let v denote the output of the circuit evaluation.
  4. Compute the wire polynomials just as in the prover's step (4.).
  5. Compute the tests for well-formedness of the gadget polynomials. That is, for every i in [H]:

    • Let t = query_rand[i]. Check if t^(P_i) == 1: If so, then raise ERR_ABORT and halt. (This prevents the verifier from inadvertently leaking a gadget output in the verifier message.)
    • Let y_i = poly_gadget_i(t).
    • For each j in [0,L_i) let x_i[j-1] = poly_wire_i[j-1](t).

The verifier message is the vector verifier = [v] + x_1 + [y_1] + ... + x_H + [y_H].

7.3.3.3. Decision

On input of vector verifier, the verifier decides if the input is valid as follows:

  1. Parse verifier into v, x_1, y_1, ..., x_H, y_H as defined in Section 7.3.3.2.
  2. Check for well-formedness of the gadget polynomials. For every i in [H]:

    • Let z = G_i(x_i). That is, evaluate the circuit G_i on x_i and set z to the output.
    • If z != y_i, then return False and halt.
  3. Return True if v == 0 and False otherwise.
7.3.3.4. Encoding

The FLP encoding and truncation methods invoke Valid.encode, Valid.truncate, and Valid.decode in the natural way.

7.4. Instantiations

This section specifies instantiations of Prio3 for various measurement types. Each uses FlpGeneric as the FLP (Section 7.3) and is determined by a validity circuit (Section 7.3.2) and a PRG (Section 6.2). Test vectors for each can be found in Appendix "Test Vectors".

  • NOTE Reference implementations of each of these VDAFs can be found in https://github.com/cfrg/draft-irtf-cfrg-vdaf/blob/main/poc/vdaf_prio3.sage.

7.4.1. Prio3Aes128Count

Our first instance of Prio3 is for a simple counter: Each measurement is either one or zero and the aggregate result is the sum of the measurements.

This instance uses PrgAes128 (Section 6.2.1) as its PRG. Its validity circuit, denoted Count, uses Field64 (Table 3) as its finite field. Its gadget, denoted Mul, is the degree-2, arity-2 gadget defined as

def Mul(x, y):
    return x * y

The validity circuit is defined as

def Count(inp: Vec[Field64]):
    return Mul(inp[0], inp[0]) - inp[0]

The measurement is encoded and decoded as a singleton vector in the natural way. The parameters for this circuit are summarized below.

Table 10: Parameters of validity circuit Count.
Parameter Value
GADGETS [Mul]
GADGET_CALLS [1]
INPUT_LEN 1
OUTPUT_LEN 1
JOINT_RAND_LEN 0
Measurement Unsigned, in range [0,2)
AggResult Unsigned
Field Field64 (Table 3)

7.4.2. Prio3Aes128Sum

The next instance of Prio3 supports summing of integers in a pre-determined range. Each measurement is an integer in range [0, 2^bits), where bits is an associated parameter.

This instance of Prio3 uses PrgAes128 (Section 6.2.1) as its PRG. Its validity circuit, denoted Sum, uses Field128 (Table 4) as its finite field. The measurement is encoded as a length-bits vector of field elements, where the lth element of the vector represents the lth bit of the summand:

def encode(Sum, measurement: Integer):
    if 0 > measurement or measurement >= 2^Sum.INPUT_LEN:
        raise ERR_INPUT

    encoded = []
    for l in range(Sum.INPUT_LEN):
        encoded.append(Sum.Field((measurement >> l) & 1))
    return encoded

def truncate(Sum, inp):
    decoded = Sum.Field(0)
    for (l, b) in enumerate(inp):
        w = Sum.Field(1 << l)
        decoded += w * b
    return [decoded]

def decode(Sum, output, _num_measurements):
    return output[0].as_unsigned()

The validity circuit checks that the input consists of ones and zeros. Its gadget, denoted Range2, is the degree-2, arity-1 gadget defined as

def Range2(x):
    return x^2 - x

The validity circuit is defined as

def Sum(inp: Vec[Field128], joint_rand: Vec[Field128]):
    out = Field128(0)
    r = joint_rand[0]
    for x in inp:
        out += r * Range2(x)
        r *= joint_rand[0]
    return out
Table 11: Parameters of validity circuit Sum.
Parameter Value
GADGETS [Range2]
GADGET_CALLS [bits]
INPUT_LEN bits
OUTPUT_LEN 1
JOINT_RAND_LEN 1
Measurement Unsigned, in range [0, 2^bits)
AggResult Unsigned
Field Field128 (Table 4)

7.4.3. Prio3Aes128Histogram

This instance of Prio3 allows for estimating the distribution of the measurements by computing a simple histogram. Each measurement is an arbitrary integer and the aggregate result counts the number of measurements that fall in a set of fixed buckets.

This instance of Prio3 uses PrgAes128 (Section 6.2.1) as its PRG. Its validity circuit, denoted Histogram, uses Field128 (Table 4) as its finite field. The measurement is encoded as a one-hot vector representing the bucket into which the measurement falls (let bucket denote a sequence of monotonically increasing integers):

def encode(Histogram, measurement: Integer):
    boundaries = buckets + [Infinity]
    encoded = [Field128(0) for _ in range(len(boundaries))]
    for i in range(len(boundaries)):
        if measurement <= boundaries[i]:
            encoded[i] = Field128(1)
            return encoded

def truncate(Histogram, inp: Vec[Field128]):
    return inp

def decode(Histogram, output: Vec[Field128], _num_measurements):
    return [bucket_count.as_unsigned() for bucket_count in output]

The validity circuit uses Range2 (see Section 7.4.2) as its single gadget. It checks for one-hotness in two steps, as follows:

def Histogram(inp: Vec[Field128],
              joint_rand: Vec[Field128],
              num_shares: Unsigned):
    # Check that each bucket is one or zero.
    range_check = Field128(0)
    r = joint_rand[0]
    for x in inp:
        range_check += r * Range2(x)
        r *= joint_rand[0]

    # Check that the buckets sum to 1.
    sum_check = -Field128(1) * Field128(num_shares).inv()
    for b in inp:
        sum_check += b

    out = joint_rand[1]   * range_check + \
          joint_rand[1]^2 * sum_check
    return out

Note that this circuit depends on the number of shares into which the input is sharded. This is provided to the FLP by Prio3.

Table 12: Parameters of validity circuit Histogram.
Parameter Value
GADGETS [Range2]
GADGET_CALLS [buckets + 1]
INPUT_LEN buckets + 1
OUTPUT_LEN buckets + 1
JOINT_RAND_LEN 2
Measurement Integer
AggResult Vec[Unsigned]
Field Field128 (Table 4)

8. Poplar1

This section specifies Poplar1, a VDAF for the following task. Each Client holds a string of length BITS and the Aggregators hold a set of l-bit strings, where l <= BITS. We will refer to the latter as the set of "candidate prefixes". The Aggregators' goal is to count how many inputs are prefixed by each candidate prefix.

This functionality is the core component of the Poplar protocol [BBCGGI21]. At a high level, the protocol works as follows.

  1. Each Client splits its input string into input shares and sends one share to each Aggregator.
  2. The Aggregators agree on an initial set of candidate prefixes, say 0 and 1.
  3. The Aggregators evaluate the VDAF on each set of input shares and aggregate the recovered output shares. The aggregation parameter is the set of candidate prefixes.
  4. The Aggregators send their aggregate shares to the Collector, who combines them to recover the counts of each candidate prefix.
  5. Let H denote the set of prefixes that occurred at least t times. If the prefixes all have length BITS, then H is the set of t-heavy-hitters. Otherwise compute the next set of candidate prefixes as follows. For each p in H, add add p || 0 and p || 1 to the set. Repeat step 3 with the new set of candidate prefixes.

Poplar1 is constructed from an "Incremental Distributed Point Function (IDPF)", a primitive described by [BBCGGI21] that generalizes the notion of a Distributed Point Function (DPF) [GI14]. Briefly, a DPF is used to distribute the computation of a "point function", a function that evaluates to zero on every input except at a programmable "point". The computation is distributed in such a way that no one party knows either the point or what it evaluates to.

An IDPF generalizes this "point" to a path on a full binary tree from the root to one of the leaves. It is evaluated on an "index" representing a unique node of the tree. If the node is on the programmed path, then function evaluates to to a non-zero value; otherwise it evaluates to zero. This structure allows an IDPF to provide the functionality required for the above protocol, while at the same time ensuring the same degree of privacy as a DPF.

Poplar1 composes an IDPF with the "secure sketching" protocol of [BBCGGI21]. This protocol ensures that evaluating a set of input shares on a unique set of candidate prefixes results in shares of a "one-hot" vector, i.e., a vector that is zero everywhere except for one element, which is equal to one.

The remainder of this section is structured as follows. IDPFs are defined in Section 8.1; a concrete instantiation is given Section 8.3. The Poplar1 VDAF is defined in Section 8.2 in terms of a generic IDPF. Finally, a concrete instantiation of Poplar1 is specified in Section 8.4; test vectors can be found in Appendix "Test Vectors".

8.1. Incremental Distributed Point Functions (IDPFs)

An IDPF is defined over a domain of size 2^BITS, where BITS is constant defined by the IDPF. Indexes into the IDPF tree are encoded as integers in range [0, 2^BITS). The Client specifies an index alpha and a vector of values beta, one for each "level" L in range [0, BITS). The key generation algorithm generates one IDPF "key" for each Aggregator. When evaluated at level L and index 0 <= prefix < 2^L, each IDPF key returns an additive share of beta[L] if prefix is the L-bit prefix of alpha and shares of zero otherwise.

An index x is defined to be a prefix of another index y as follows. Let LSB(x, N) denote the least significant N bits of positive integer x. By definition, a positive integer 0 <= x < 2^L is said to be the length-L prefix of positive integer 0 <= y < 2^BITS if LSB(x, L) is equal to the most significant L bits of LSB(y, BITS), For example, 6 (110 in binary) is the length-3 prefix of 25 (11001), but 7 (111) is not.

Each of the programmed points beta is a vector of elements of some finite field. We distinguish two types of fields: One for inner nodes (denoted Idpf.FieldInner), and one for leaf nodes (Idpf.FieldLeaf). (Our instantiation of Poplar1 (Section 8.4) will use a much larger field for leaf nodes than for inner nodes. This is to ensure the IDPF is "extractable" as defined in [BBCGGI21], Definition 1.)

A concrete IDPF defines the types and constants enumerated in Table 13. In the remainder we write Idpf.Vec as shorthand for the type Union[Vec[Vec[Idpf.FieldInner]], Vec[Vec[Idpf.FieldLeaf]]]. (This type denotes either a vector of inner node field elements or leaf node field elements.) The scheme is comprised of the following algorithms:

  • Idpf.gen(alpha: Unsigned, beta_inner: Vec[Vec[Idpf.FieldInner]], beta_leaf: Vec[Idpf.FieldLeaf]) -> (Bytes, Vec[Bytes]) is the randomized IDPF-key generation algorithm. Its inputs are the index alpha and the values beta. The value of alpha MUST be in range [0, 2^BITS). The output is a public part that is sent to all Aggregators and a vector of private IDPF keys, one for each aggregator.
  • Idpf.eval(agg_id: Unsigned, public_share: Bytes, key: Bytes, level: Unsigned, prefixes: Vec[Unsigned]) -> Idpf.Vec is the deterministic, stateless IDPF-key evaluation algorithm run by each Aggregator. Its inputs are the Aggregator's unique identifier, the public share distributed to all of the Aggregators, the Aggregator's IDPF key, the "level" at which to evaluate the IDPF, and the sequence of candidate prefixes. It returns the share of the value corresponding to each candidate prefix.

    The output type depends on the value of level: If level < Idpf.BITS-1, the output is the value for an inner node, which has type Vec[Vec[Idpf.FieldInner]]; otherwise, if level == Idpf.BITS-1, then the output is the value for a leaf node, which has type Vec[Vec[Idpf.FieldLeaf]].

    The value of level MUST be in range [0, BITS). The indexes in prefixes MUST all be distinct and in range [0, 2^level).

    Applications MUST ensure that the Aggregator's identifier is equal to the integer in range [0, SHARES) that matches the index of key in the sequence of IDPF keys output by the Client.

In addition, the following method is derived for each concrete Idpf:

def current_field(Idpf, level):
    return Idpf.FieldInner if level < Idpf.BITS-1 \
                else Idpf.FieldLeaf

Finally, an implementation note. The interface for IDPFs specified here is stateless, in the sense that there is no state carried between IDPF evaluations. This is to align the IDPF syntax with the VDAF abstraction boundary, which does not include shared state across across VDAF evaluations. In practice, of course, it will often be beneficial to expose a stateful API for IDPFs and carry the state across evaluations. See Section 8.3 for details.

Table 13: Constants and types defined by a concrete IDPF.
Parameter Description
SHARES Number of IDPF keys output by IDPF-key generator
BITS Length in bits of each input string
VALUE_LEN Number of field elements of each output value
KEY_SIZE Size in bytes of each IDPF key
FieldInner Implementation of Field (Section 6.1) used for values of inner nodes
FieldLeaf Implementation of Field used for values of leaf nodes
Prg Implementation of Prg (Section 6.2)

8.2. Construction

This section specifies Poplar1, an implementation of the Vdaf interface (Section 5). It is defined in terms of any Idpf (Section 8.1) for which Idpf.SHARES == 2 and Idpf.VALUE_LEN == 2. The associated constants and types required by the Vdaf interface are defined in Table 14. The methods required for sharding, preparation, aggregation, and unsharding are described in the remaining subsections.

Table 14: Associated parameters for the Poplar1 VDAF.
Parameter Value
VERIFY_KEY_SIZE Idpf.Prg.SEED_SIZE
ROUNDS 2
SHARES 2
Measurement Unsigned
AggParam Tuple[Unsigned, Vec[Unsigned]]
Prep Tuple[Bytes, Unsigned, Idpf.Vec]
OutShare Idpf.Vec
AggResult Vec[Unsigned]

8.2.1. Client

The client's input is an IDPF index, denoted alpha. The programmed IDPF values are pairs of field elements (1, k) where each k is chosen at random. This random value is used as part of the secure sketching protocol of [BBCGGI21], Appendix C.4. After evaluating their IDPF key shares on a given sequence of candidate prefixes, the sketching protocol is used by the Aggregators to verify that they hold shares of a one-hot vector. In addition, for each level of the tree, the prover generates random elements a, b, and c and computes

    A = -2*a + k
    B = a^2 + b - k*a + c

and sends additive shares of a, b, c, A and B to the Aggregators. Putting everything together, the input-distribution algorithm is defined as follows. Function encode_input_shares is defined in Section 8.2.5.

def measurement_to_input_shares(Poplar1, measurement):
    dst = VERSION + I2OSP(Poplar1.ID, 4)
    prg = Poplar1.Idpf.Prg(
        gen_rand(Poplar1.Idpf.Prg.SEED_SIZE), dst + byte(255))

    # Construct the IDPF values for each level of the IDPF tree.
    # Each "data" value is 1; in addition, the Client generates
    # a random "authenticator" value used by the Aggregators to
    # compute the sketch during preparation. This sketch is used
    # to verify the one-hotness of their output shares.
    beta_inner = [
        [Poplar1.Idpf.FieldInner(1), k] \
            for k in prg.next_vec(Poplar1.Idpf.FieldInner,
                                  Poplar1.Idpf.BITS - 1) ]
    beta_leaf = [Poplar1.Idpf.FieldLeaf(1)] + \
        prg.next_vec(Poplar1.Idpf.FieldLeaf, 1)

    # Generate the IDPF keys.
    (public_share, keys) = \
        Poplar1.Idpf.gen(measurement, beta_inner, beta_leaf)

    # Generate correlated randomness used by the Aggregators to
    # compute a sketch over their output shares. PRG seeds are
    # used to encode shares of the `(a, b, c)` triples.
    # (See [BBCGGI21, Appendix C.4].)
    corr_seed = [
        gen_rand(Poplar1.Idpf.Prg.SEED_SIZE),
        gen_rand(Poplar1.Idpf.Prg.SEED_SIZE),
    ]
    corr_prg = [
        Poplar1.Idpf.Prg(corr_seed[0], dst + byte(0)),
        Poplar1.Idpf.Prg(corr_seed[1], dst + byte(1)),
    ]

    # For each level of the IDPF tree, shares of the `(A, B)`
    # pairs are computed from the corresponding `(a, b, c)`
    # triple and authenticator value `k`.
    corr_inner = [[], []]
    for level in range(Poplar1.Idpf.BITS):
        Field = Poplar1.Idpf.current_field(level)
        k = beta_inner[level][1] if level < Poplar1.Idpf.BITS - 1 \
            else beta_leaf[1]
        (a, b, c) = vec_add(corr_prg[0].next_vec(Field, 3),
                            corr_prg[1].next_vec(Field, 3))
        A = -Field(2) * a + k
        B = a^2 + b - a * k + c
        corr1 = prg.next_vec(Field, 2)
        corr0 = vec_sub([A, B], corr1)
        if level < Poplar1.Idpf.BITS - 1:
            corr_inner[0] += corr0
            corr_inner[1] += corr1
        else:
            corr_leaf = [corr0, corr1]

    # Each input share consists of the Aggregator's IDPF key
    # and a share of the correlated randomness.
    return (public_share,
            Poplar1.encode_input_shares(
                keys, corr_seed, corr_inner, corr_leaf))
Figure 19: The input-distribution algorithm for Poplar1.

8.2.2. Preparation

The aggregation parameter encodes a sequence of candidate prefixes. When an Aggregator receives an input share from the Client, it begins by evaluating its IDPF share on each candidate prefix, recovering a data_share and auth_share for each. The Aggregators use these and the correlation shares provided by the Client to verify that the sequence of data_share values are additive shares of a one-hot vector.

The algorithms below make use of auxiliary functions verify_context() and decode_input_share() defined in Section 8.2.5.

def prep_init(Poplar1, verify_key, agg_id, agg_param,
              nonce, public_share, input_share):
    dst = VERSION + I2OSP(Poplar1.ID, 4)
    (level, prefixes) = agg_param
    (key, corr_seed, corr_inner, corr_leaf) = \
        Poplar1.decode_input_share(input_share)

    # Evaluate the IDPF key at the given set of prefixes.
    value = Poplar1.Idpf.eval(
        agg_id, public_share, key, level, prefixes)

    # Get correlation shares for the given level of the IDPF tree.
    #
    # Implementation note: Computing the shares of `(a, b, c)`
    # requires expanding PRG seeds into a vector of field elements
    # of length proportional to the level of the tree. Typically
    # the IDPF will be evaluated incrementally beginning with
    # `level == 0`. Implementations can save computation by
    # storing the intermediate PRG state between evaluations.
    corr_prg = Poplar1.Idpf.Prg(corr_seed, dst + byte(agg_id))
    for current_level in range(level+1):
        Field = Poplar1.Idpf.current_field(current_level)
        (a_share, b_share, c_share) = corr_prg.next_vec(Field, 3)
    (A_share, B_share) = corr_inner[2*level:2*(level+1)] \
        if level < Poplar1.Idpf.BITS - 1 else corr_leaf

    # Compute the Aggregator's first round of the sketch. These are
    # called the "masked input values" [BBCGGI21, Appendix C.4].
    Field = Poplar1.Idpf.current_field(level)
    verify_rand_prg = Poplar1.Idpf.Prg(verify_key,
        dst + Poplar1.verify_context(nonce, level, prefixes))
    verify_rand = verify_rand_prg.next_vec(Field, len(prefixes))
    sketch_share = [a_share, b_share, c_share]
    out_share = []
    for (i, r) in enumerate(verify_rand):
        (data_share, auth_share) = value[i]
        sketch_share[0] += data_share * r
        sketch_share[1] += data_share * r^2
        sketch_share[2] += auth_share * r
        out_share.append(data_share)

    prep_mem = sketch_share \
                + [A_share, B_share, Field(agg_id)] \
                + out_share
    return (b'ready', level, prep_mem)

def prep_next(Poplar1, prep_state, opt_sketch):
    (step, level, prep_mem) = prep_state
    Field = Poplar1.Idpf.current_field(level)

    # Aggregators exchange masked input values (step (3.)
    # of [BBCGGI21, Appendix C.4]).
    if step == b'ready' and opt_sketch == None:
        sketch_share, prep_mem = prep_mem[:3], prep_mem[3:]
        return ((b'sketch round 1', level, prep_mem),
                Field.encode_vec(sketch_share))

    # Aggregators exchange evaluated shares (step (4.)).
    elif step == b'sketch round 1' and opt_sketch != None:
        prev_sketch = Field.decode_vec(opt_sketch)
        if len(prev_sketch) == 0:
            prev_sketch = Field.zeros(3)
        elif len(prev_sketch) != 3:
            raise ERR_INPUT # prep message malformed
        (A_share, B_share, agg_id), prep_mem = \
            prep_mem[:3], prep_mem[3:]
        sketch_share = [
            agg_id * (prev_sketch[0]^2 \
                        - prev_sketch[1]
                        - prev_sketch[2]) \
                + A_share * prev_sketch[0] \
                + B_share
        ]
        return ((b'sketch round 2', level, prep_mem),
                Field.encode_vec(sketch_share))

    elif step == b'sketch round 2' and opt_sketch != None:
        prev_sketch = Field.decode_vec(opt_sketch)
        if len(prev_sketch) == 0:
            prev_sketch = Field.zeros(1)
        elif len(prev_sketch) != 1:
            raise ERR_INPUT # prep message malformed
        if prev_sketch[0] != Field(0):
            raise ERR_VERIFY
        return prep_mem # Output shares

    raise ERR_INPUT # unexpected input

def prep_shares_to_prep(Poplar1, agg_param, prep_shares):
    if len(prep_shares) != 2:
        raise ERR_INPUT # unexpected number of prep shares
    (level, _) = agg_param
    Field = Poplar1.Idpf.current_field(level)
    sketch = vec_add(Field.decode_vec(prep_shares[0]),
                     Field.decode_vec(prep_shares[1]))
    if sketch == Field.zeros(len(sketch)):
        # In order to reduce communication overhead, let the
        # empty string denote the zero vector of the required
        # length.
        return b''
    return Field.encode_vec(sketch)
Figure 20: Preparation state for Poplar1.

8.2.3. Aggregation

Aggregation involves simply adding up the output shares.

def out_shares_to_agg_share(Poplar1, agg_param, out_shares):
    (level, prefixes) = agg_param
    Field = Poplar1.Idpf.current_field(level)
    agg_share = Field.zeros(len(prefixes))
    for out_share in out_shares:
        agg_share = vec_add(agg_share, out_share)
    return Field.encode_vec(agg_share)
Figure 21: Aggregation algorithm for Poplar1.

8.2.4. Unsharding

Finally, the Collector unshards the aggregate result by adding up the aggregate shares.

def agg_shares_to_result(Poplar1, agg_param,
                         agg_shares, _num_measurements):
    (level, prefixes) = agg_param
    Field = Poplar1.Idpf.current_field(level)
    agg = Field.zeros(len(prefixes))
    for agg_share in agg_shares:
        agg = vec_add(agg, Field.decode_vec(agg_share))
    return list(map(lambda x: x.as_unsigned(), agg))
Figure 22: Computation of the aggregate result for Poplar1.

8.2.5. Auxiliary Functions

def encode_input_shares(Poplar1, keys,
                        corr_seed, corr_inner, corr_leaf):
    input_shares = []
    for (key, seed, inner, leaf) in zip(keys,
                                        corr_seed,
                                        corr_inner,
                                        corr_leaf):
        encoded = Bytes()
        encoded += key
        encoded += seed
        encoded += Poplar1.Idpf.FieldInner.encode_vec(inner)
        encoded += Poplar1.Idpf.FieldLeaf.encode_vec(leaf)
        input_shares.append(encoded)
    return input_shares

def decode_input_share(Poplar1, encoded):
    l = Poplar1.Idpf.KEY_SIZE
    key, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    l = Poplar1.Idpf.Prg.SEED_SIZE
    corr_seed, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    l = Poplar1.Idpf.FieldInner.ENCODED_SIZE \
        * 2 * (Poplar1.Idpf.BITS - 1)
    encoded_corr_inner, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    corr_inner = Poplar1.Idpf.FieldInner.decode_vec(
        encoded_corr_inner)
    l = Poplar1.Idpf.FieldLeaf.ENCODED_SIZE * 2
    encoded_corr_leaf, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    corr_leaf = Poplar1.Idpf.FieldLeaf.decode_vec(
        encoded_corr_leaf)
    if len(encoded) != 0:
        raise ERR_INPUT
    return (key, corr_seed, corr_inner, corr_leaf)

def encode_agg_param(Poplar1, level, prefixes):
    if level > 2^16 - 1:
        raise ERR_INPUT # level too deep
    if len(prefixes) > 2^16 - 1:
        raise ERR_INPUT # too many prefixes
    encoded = Bytes()
    encoded += I2OSP(level, 2)
    encoded += I2OSP(len(prefixes), 2)
    packed = 0
    for (i, prefix) in enumerate(prefixes):
        packed |= prefix << ((level+1) * i)
    l = floor(((level+1) * len(prefixes) + 7) / 8)
    encoded += I2OSP(packed, l)
    return encoded

def verify_context(Poplar1, nonce, level, prefixes):
    if len(nonce) > 255:
        raise ERR_INPUT # nonce too long
    context = Bytes()
    context += byte(254)
    context += byte(len(nonce))
    context += nonce
    context += Poplar1.encode_agg_param(level, prefixes)
    return context
Figure 23: Helper functions for Poplar1.

8.3. The IDPF scheme of [BBCGGI21]

In this section we specify a concrete IDPF, called IdpfPoplar, suitable for instantiating Poplar1. The scheme gets its name from the name of the protocol of [BBCGGI21].

  • TODO We should consider giving IdpfPoplar a more distinctive name.

The constant and type definitions required by the Idpf interface are given in Table 15.

Table 15: Constants and type definitions for IdpfPoplar.
Parameter Value
SHARES 2
BITS any positive integer
VALUE_LEN any positive integer
KEY_SIZE Prg.SEED_SIZE
FieldInner Field64 (Table 3)
FieldLeaf Field255 (Table 5)
Prg any implementation of Prg (Section 6.2)

8.3.1. Key Generation

  • TODO Describe the construction in prose, beginning with a gentle introduction to the high level idea.

The description of the IDPF-key generation algorithm makes use of auxiliary functions extend(), convert(), and encode_public_share() defined in Section 8.3.3. In the following, we let Field2 denote the field GF(2).

def gen(IdpfPoplar, alpha, beta_inner, beta_leaf):
    if alpha >= 2^IdpfPoplar.BITS:
        raise ERR_INPUT # alpha too long
    if len(beta_inner) != IdpfPoplar.BITS - 1:
        raise ERR_INPUT # beta_inner vector is the wrong size

    init_seed = [
        gen_rand(IdpfPoplar.Prg.SEED_SIZE),
        gen_rand(IdpfPoplar.Prg.SEED_SIZE),
    ]

    seed = init_seed.copy()
    ctrl = [Field2(0), Field2(1)]
    correction_words = []
    for level in range(IdpfPoplar.BITS):
        keep = (alpha >> (IdpfPoplar.BITS - level - 1)) & 1
        lose = 1 - keep
        bit = Field2(keep)

        (s0, t0) = IdpfPoplar.extend(seed[0])
        (s1, t1) = IdpfPoplar.extend(seed[1])
        seed_cw = xor(s0[lose], s1[lose])
        ctrl_cw = (
            t0[0] + t1[0] + bit + Field2(1),
            t0[1] + t1[1] + bit,
        )

        x0 = xor(s0[keep], seed_cw) if ctrl[0] == Field2(1) \
                else s0[keep]
        x1 = xor(s1[keep], seed_cw) if ctrl[1] == Field2(1) \
                else s1[keep]
        (seed[0], w0) = IdpfPoplar.convert(level, x0)
        (seed[1], w1) = IdpfPoplar.convert(level, x1)
        ctrl[0] = t0[keep] + ctrl[0] * ctrl_cw[keep]
        ctrl[1] = t1[keep] + ctrl[1] * ctrl_cw[keep]

        b = beta_inner[level] if level < IdpfPoplar.BITS-1 \
                else beta_leaf
        if len(b) != IdpfPoplar.VALUE_LEN:
            raise ERR_INPUT # beta too long or too short

        w_cw = vec_add(vec_sub(b, w0), w1)
        if ctrl[1] == Field2(1):
            w_cw = vec_neg(w_cw)
        correction_words.append((seed_cw, ctrl_cw, w_cw))

    public_share = IdpfPoplar.encode_public_share(correction_words)
    return (public_share, init_seed)
Figure 24: IDPF-key generation algorithm of IdpfPoplar.

8.3.2. Key Evaluation

  • TODO Describe in prose how IDPF-key evaluation algorithm works.

The description of the IDPF-evaluation algorithm makes use of auxiliary functions extend(), convert(), and decode_public_share() defined in Section 8.3.3.

def eval(IdpfPoplar, agg_id, public_share, init_seed,
         level, prefixes):
    if agg_id >= IdpfPoplar.SHARES:
        raise ERR_INPUT # invalid aggregator ID
    if level >= IdpfPoplar.BITS:
        raise ERR_INPUT # level too deep
    if len(set(prefixes)) != len(prefixes):
        raise ERR_INPUT # candidate prefixes are non-unique

    correction_words = IdpfPoplar.decode_public_share(public_share)
    out_share = []
    for prefix in prefixes:
        if prefix >= 2^(level+1):
            raise ERR_INPUT # prefix too long

        # The Aggregator's output share is the value of a node of
        # the IDPF tree at the given `level`. The node's value is
        # computed by traversing the path defined by the candidate
        # `prefix`. Each node in the tree is represented by a seed
        # (`seed`) and a set of control bits (`ctrl`).
        seed = init_seed
        ctrl = Field2(agg_id)
        for current_level in range(level+1):
            bit = (prefix >> (level - current_level)) & 1

            # Implementation note: Typically the current round of
            # candidate prefixes would have been derived from
            # aggregate results computed during previous rounds. For
            # example, when using `IdpfPoplar` to compute heavy
            # hitters, a string whose hit count exceeded the given
            # threshold in the last round would be the prefix of each
            # `prefix` in the current round. (See [BBCGGI21,
            # Section 5.1].) In this case, part of the path would
            # have already been traversed.
            #
            # Re-computing nodes along previously traversed paths is
            # wasteful. Implementations can eliminate this added
            # complexity by caching nodes (i.e., `(seed, ctrl)`
            # pairs) output by previous calls to `eval_next()`.
            (seed, ctrl, y) = IdpfPoplar.eval_next(seed, ctrl,
                correction_words[current_level], current_level, bit)
        out_share.append(y if agg_id == 0 else vec_neg(y))
    return out_share

# Compute the next node in the IDPF tree along the path determined by
# a candidate prefix. The next node is determined by `bit`, the bit
# of the prefix corresponding to the next level of the tree.
#
# TODO Consider implementing some version of the optimization
# discussed at the end of [BBCGGI21, Appendix C.2]. This could on
# average reduce the number of AES calls by a constant factor.
def eval_next(IdpfPoplar, prev_seed, prev_ctrl,
              correction_word, level, bit):
    (seed_cw, ctrl_cw, w_cw) = correction_word
    (s, t) = IdpfPoplar.extend(prev_seed)
    if prev_ctrl == Field2(1):
        s[0] = xor(s[0], seed_cw)
        s[1] = xor(s[1], seed_cw)
        t[0] = t[0] + ctrl_cw[0]
        t[1] = t[1] + ctrl_cw[1]

    next_ctrl = t[bit]
    (next_seed, y) = IdpfPoplar.convert(level, s[bit])
    if next_ctrl == Field2(1):
        y = vec_add(y, w_cw)
    return (next_seed, next_ctrl, y)
Figure 25: IDPF-evaluation generation algorithm of IdpfPoplar.

8.3.3. Auxiliary Functions

def extend(IdpfPoplar, seed):
    dst = VERSION + b' idpf poplar extend'
    prg = IdpfPoplar.Prg(seed, dst)
    s = [
        prg.next(IdpfPoplar.Prg.SEED_SIZE),
        prg.next(IdpfPoplar.Prg.SEED_SIZE),
    ]
    b = OS2IP(prg.next(1))
    t = [Field2(b & 1), Field2((b >> 1) & 1)]
    return (s, t)

def convert(IdpfPoplar, level, seed):
    dst = VERSION + b' idpf poplar convert'
    prg = IdpfPoplar.Prg(seed, dst)
    next_seed = prg.next(IdpfPoplar.Prg.SEED_SIZE)
    Field = IdpfPoplar.current_field(level)
    w = prg.next_vec(Field, IdpfPoplar.VALUE_LEN)
    return (next_seed, w)

def encode_public_share(IdpfPoplar, correction_words):
    encoded = Bytes()
    packed_ctrl = 0
    for (level, (_, ctrl_cw, _)) \
        in enumerate(correction_words):
        packed_ctrl |= ctrl_cw[0].as_unsigned() << (2*level)
        packed_ctrl |= ctrl_cw[1].as_unsigned() << (2*level+1)
    l = floor((2*IdpfPoplar.BITS + 7) / 8)
    encoded += I2OSP(packed_ctrl, l)
    for (level, (seed_cw, _, w_cw)) \
        in enumerate(correction_words):
        Field = IdpfPoplar.current_field(level)
        encoded += seed_cw
        encoded += Field.encode_vec(w_cw)
    return encoded

def decode_public_share(IdpfPoplar, encoded):
    l = floor((2*IdpfPoplar.BITS + 7) / 8)
    encoded_ctrl, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
    packed_ctrl = OS2IP(encoded_ctrl)
    correction_words = []
    for level in range(IdpfPoplar.BITS):
        Field = IdpfPoplar.current_field(level)
        ctrl_cw = (Field2(packed_ctrl & 1),
                   Field2((packed_ctrl >> 1) & 1))
        packed_ctrl >>= 2
        l = IdpfPoplar.Prg.SEED_SIZE
        seed_cw, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
        l = Field.ENCODED_SIZE * IdpfPoplar.VALUE_LEN
        encoded_w_cw, encoded = encoded[:l], encoded[l:]
        w_cw = Field.decode_vec(encoded_w_cw)
        correction_words.append((seed_cw, ctrl_cw, w_cw))
    if len(encoded) != 0:
        raise ERR_DECODE
    return correction_words
Figure 26: Helper functions for IdpfPoplar.

8.4. Poplar1Aes128

We refer to Poplar1 instantiated with IdpfPoplar (VALUE_LEN == 2) and PrgAes128 (Section 6.2.1) as Poplar1Aes128. This VDAF is suitable for any positive value of BITS. Test vectors can be found in Appendix "Test Vectors".

9. Security Considerations

VDAFs have two essential security goals:

  1. Privacy: An attacker that controls the network, the Collector, and a subset of Clients and Aggregators learns nothing about the measurements of honest Clients beyond what it can deduce from the aggregate result.
  2. Robustness: An attacker that controls the network and a subset of Clients cannot cause the Collector to compute anything other than the aggregate of the measurements of honest Clients.

Note that, to achieve robustness, it is important to ensure that the verification key distributed to the Aggregators (verify_key, see Section 5.2) is never revealed to the Clients.

It is also possible to consider a stronger form of robustness, where the attacker also controls a subset of Aggregators (see [BBCGGI19], Section 6.3). To satisfy this stronger notion of robustness, it is necessary to prevent the attacker from sharing the verification key with the Clients. It is therefore RECOMMENDED that the Aggregators generate verify_key only after a set of Client inputs has been collected for verification, and re-generate them for each such set of inputs.

In order to achieve robustness, the Aggregators MUST ensure that the nonces used to process the measurements in a batch are all unique.

A VDAF is the core cryptographic primitive of a protocol that achieves the above privacy and robustness goals. It is not sufficient on its own, however. The application will need to assure a few security properties, for example:

In such an environment, a VDAF provides the high-level privacy property described above: The Collector learns only the aggregate measurement, and nothing about individual measurements aside from what can be inferred from the aggregate result. The Aggregators learn neither individual measurements nor the aggregate result. The Collector is assured that the aggregate statistic accurately reflects the inputs as long as the Aggregators correctly executed their role in the VDAF.

On their own, VDAFs do not mitigate Sybil attacks [Dou02]. In this attack, the adversary observes a subset of input shares transmitted by a Client it is interested in. It allows the input shares to be processed, but corrupts and picks bogus inputs for the remaining Clients. Applications can guard against these risks by adding additional controls on measurement submission, such as client authentication and rate limits.

VDAFs do not inherently provide differential privacy [Dwo06]. The VDAF approach to private measurement can be viewed as complementary to differential privacy, relying on non-collusion instead of statistical noise to protect the privacy of the inputs. It is possible that a future VDAF could incorporate differential privacy features, e.g., by injecting noise before the sharding stage and removing it after unsharding.

10. IANA Considerations

A codepoint for each (V)DAF in this document is defined in the table below. Note that 0xFFFF0000 through 0xFFFFFFFF are reserved for private use.

Table 16: Unique identifiers for (V)DAFs.
Value Scheme Type Reference
0x00000000 Prio3Aes128Count VDAF Section 7.4.1
0x00000001 Prio3Aes128Sum VDAF Section 7.4.2
0x00000002 Prio3Aes128Histogram VDAF Section 7.4.3
0x00000003 to 0x00000FFF reserved for Prio3 VDAF n/a
0x00001000 Poplar1Aes128 VDAF Section 8.4
0xFFFF0000 to 0xFFFFFFFF reserved n/a n/a

11. References

11.1. Normative References

[RFC2119]
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
[RFC4493]
Song, JH., Poovendran, R., Lee, J., and T. Iwata, "The AES-CMAC Algorithm", RFC 4493, DOI 10.17487/RFC4493, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4493>.
[RFC8017]
Moriarty, K., Ed., Kaliski, B., Jonsson, J., and A. Rusch, "PKCS #1: RSA Cryptography Specifications Version 2.2", RFC 8017, DOI 10.17487/RFC8017, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8017>.
[RFC8174]
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

11.2. Informative References

[AGJOP21]
Addanki, S., Garbe, K., Jaffe, E., Ostrovsky, R., and A. Polychroniadou, "Prio+: Privacy Preserving Aggregate Statistics via Boolean Shares", , <https://ia.cr/2021/576>.
[BBCGGI19]
Boneh, D., Boyle, E., Corrigan-Gibbs, H., Gilboa, N., and Y. Ishai, "Zero-Knowledge Proofs on Secret-Shared Data via Fully Linear PCPs", CRYPTO 2019 , , <https://ia.cr/2019/188>.
[BBCGGI21]
Boneh, D., Boyle, E., Corrigan-Gibbs, H., Gilboa, N., and Y. Ishai, "Lightweight Techniques for Private Heavy Hitters", IEEE S&P 2021 , , <https://ia.cr/2021/017>.
[CGB17]
Corrigan-Gibbs, H. and D. Boneh, "Prio: Private, Robust, and Scalable Computation of Aggregate Statistics", NSDI 2017 , , <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3154630.3154652>.
[DAP]
Geoghegan, T., Patton, C., Rescorla, E., and C. A. Wood, "Distributed Aggregation Protocol for Privacy Preserving Measurement", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-ppm-dap-01, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-ppm-dap-01>.
[Dou02]
Douceur, J., "The Sybil Attack", IPTPS 2002 , , <https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45748-8_24>.
[Dwo06]
Dwork, C., "Differential Privacy", ICALP 2006 , , <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11787006_1>.
[ENPA]
"Exposure Notification Privacy-preserving Analytics (ENPA) White Paper", , <https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/current/static/contact-tracing/pdf/ENPA_White_Paper.pdf>.
[EPK14]
Erlingsson, Ú., Pihur, V., and A. Korolova, "RAPPOR: Randomized Aggregatable Privacy-Preserving Ordinal Response", CCS 2014 , , <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2660267.2660348>.
[GI14]
Gilboa, N. and Y. Ishai, "Distributed Point Functions and Their Applications", EUROCRYPT 2014 , , <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-55220-5_35>.
[OriginTelemetry]
"Origin Telemetry", , <https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/telemetry/collection/origin.html>.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to David Cook, Henry Corrigan-Gibbs, Armando Faz-Hernandez, Simon Friedberger, Tim Geoghegan, Mariana Raykova, Jacob Rothstein, and Christopher Wood for useful feedback on and contributions to the spec.

Test Vectors

Test vectors cover the generation of input shares and the conversion of input shares into output shares. Vectors specify the verification key, measurements, aggregation parameter, and any parameters needed to construct the VDAF. (For example, for Prio3Aes128Sum, the user specifies the number of bits for representing each summand.)

Byte strings are encoded in hexadecimal To make the tests deterministic, gen_rand() was replaced with a function that returns the requested number of 0x01 octets.

Prio3Aes128Count

verify_key: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
upload_0:
  measurement: 1
  nonce: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
  public_share: >-
  input_share_0: >-
    ad8bb894e3222b47b70eb67d4f70cb78644826d67d31129e422b910cf0aab70c0b78
    fa57b4a7b3aaafae57bd1012e813
  input_share_1: >-
    0101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101
  round_0:
    prep_share_0: >-
      38d535dd68f3c02ed6681f7ff24239d46fde93c8402d24ebbafa25c77ca3535d
    prep_share_1: >-
      c72aca21970c3fd35274476a1cddd4bb4efa24ee0d71473e4a0a23713a347d78
    prep_message: >-
  out_share_0:
    - 12505291739929652039
  out_share_1:
    - 5941452329484932283
agg_share_0: >-
  ad8bb894e3222b47
agg_share_1: >-
  5274476a1cddd4bb
agg_result: 1

Prio3Aes128Sum

bits: 8
verify_key: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
upload_0:
  measurement: 100
  nonce: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
  public_share: >-
  input_share_0: >-
    fc1e42a024e3d8b45f63f485ebe2dc8a356c5e5780a0bd751184e6a02a96c0767f51
    8e87282ebdc039590aef02e40e5492c9eb69dd22b6b4f1d630e7ca8612b7a7e090b3
    9460bc4036345f5ef537d691fd585bc05a2ea580c7e354680afd0fd49f3d083d5e38
    3b97755a842cf5e69870a970b14a10595c0c639ad2e7bda42c7146c4b69fd79e7403
    d89dac5816d0dc6f2bb987fccca4c4aee64444b7f46431433c59c6e7f2839fe2b7ad
    9316d31a52dcc0df07f1da14aa38e0cd88de380fda29b33704e8c3439376762739aa
    5b5cff9e925939773d24ca0e75bcf87149c9bcc2f8462afa6b50513ab003ac00c9ae
    3685ea52bdee3c814ffd5afc8357d93454b3ffaf0b5e9fd351730f0d55aed54a9cfa
    86f9119601ce9857ee0af3f579251bcc7ffe51b8393adc36ab6142eb0e0d07c9b2d5
    ab71d8d5639f32c61f7d59b45a95129cbc76d7e30c02a1329454f843553413d4e84b
    cab2c3ba1a0150292026dfa37488da5dd639c53edd51bf4eb5aa54d5b165fcd55d10
    f3496008f4e3b6d3eb200c19c5b9c42ad4f12977a857d02f787b14ced27fc5eefb05
    722b372a7d48c1891d30a32d84ec8d1f9a783a38bfac2793f0da6796cff90521e1d7
    3f497f7d2c910b7fbbea2ba4b906d437a53bcbed16986f5646fd238e736f1c3e9d3a
    910218ce7f48dea3e9a1a848c580a1c506a80edb0c0a973a269667475ce88f442467
    4b14a3a8f2b71ef529d2ca96a3c5e4da384545749a55188d4de0074ad601695e934c
    9fe71d27c139b7678ead7f904cd2ae2a3aafa96d8211579e391507df96bf42c383f2
    ac71d7a558ebf1e3d5ab086b65422415bd24be9c979ca5b4f381d51b06ec4f6740b1
    a084999cd95fe63fec4a019f635640ba18d42312de7d1994947502b9010101010101
    010101010101010101015f0721f50826593dc3908dad39353846
  input_share_1: >-
    01010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101
    0101010101010101010101010101094240ceae2d63ba1bdda997fa0bcbd8
  round_0:
    prep_share_0: >-
      0a85b5e51cacf514ee9e9bbe5d3ac023795e910b765411e5cea8ff187973640694
      bd740cc15bc9cad60bc85785206062094240ceae2d63ba1bdda997fa0bcbd8
    prep_share_1: >-
      f57a4a1ae3530acf11616441a2c53fde804d262dc42e15e556ee02c588c3ca9d92
      4eefa735a95f6e420f2c5161706e025f0721f50826593dc3908dad39353846
    prep_message: >-
      60af733578d766f2305c1d53c840b4b5
  out_share_0:
    - 227608477929192160221239678567201956832
  out_share_1:
    - 112673888991746302725626094800698809477
agg_share_0: >-
  ab3bcc5ef693737a7a3e76cd9face3e0
agg_share_1: >-
  54c433a1096c8c6985c1893260531c85
agg_result: 100

Prio3Aes128Histogram

buckets: [1, 10, 100]
verify_key: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
upload_0:
  measurement: 50
  nonce: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
  public_share: >-
  input_share_0: >-
    ee1076c1ebc2d48a557a71031bc9dd5c9cd5e91180bbb51f4ac366946bcbfa93b908
    792bd15d402f4ac8da264e24a20f645ef68472180c5894bac704ae0675d7f16776df
    4f93852a40b514593a73be51ad64d8c28322a47af92c92223dd489998a3c6687861c
    dc2e4d834885d03d8d3273af0bf742c47985ae8fec6d16c31216792bb0cdca0d1d1f
    a2287414cd069f8caa42dc08f78dd43e14c4095e2ef9d9609937caebcd534e813136
    e79a4233e873397a6c7fd164928d43673b32e061139dc6650152d8433e2342f59514
    9418929b74c9e23f1469ed1eebdaa57d0b5c62f90cb5a53dc68c8e030448bb2d9c07
    aeed50d82c93e1afe8febd68918933ed9b2dd36b9d8a35fd6c57cd76707011fca775
    26437aeb8392a2013f829c1e395f7f8ddef030f5bc869833f528ae2137a2e667aa64
    8d8643f6c13e8d76e8832ab9ef7d0101010101010101010101010101010194c3f0f1
    061c8f440b51f806ad822510
  input_share_1: >-
    01010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101
    01010101010101010101010101016195ec204fd5d65c14fac36b73723cde
  round_0:
    prep_share_0: >-
      f2dc9e823b867d760b2169644633804eabec10e5869fe8f3030c5da6dc0fce03a4
      33572cb8aaa7ca3559959f7bad68306195ec204fd5d65c14fac36b73723cde
    prep_share_1: >-
      0d23617dc479826df4de969bb9cc7fb3f5e934542e987db0271aee33551b28a4c1
      6f7ad00127c43df9c433a1c224594d94c3f0f1061c8f440b51f806ad822510
    prep_message: >-
      7912f1157c2ce3a4dca6456224aeaeea
  out_share_0:
    - 316441748434879643753815489063091297628
    - 208470253761472213750543248431791209107
    - 245951175238245845331446316072865931791
    - 133415875449384174923011884997795018199
  out_share_1:
    - 23840618486058819193050284304809468581
    - 131812113159466249196322524936109557102
    - 94331191682692617615419457295034834419
    - 206866491471554288023853888370105748010
agg_share_0: >-
  ee1076c1ebc2d48a557a71031bc9dd5c9cd5e91180bbb51f4ac366946bcbfa93b90879
  2bd15d402f4ac8da264e24a20f645ef68472180c5894bac704ae0675d7
agg_share_1: >-
  11ef893e143d2b59aa858efce43622a5632a16ee7f444ac4b53c996b9434056e46f786
  d42ea2bfb4b53725d9b1db5df39ba1097b8de7f38b6b4538fb51f98a2a
agg_result: [0, 0, 1, 0]

Poplar1Aes128

Sharding

bits: 4
verify_key: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
agg_param: (0, [0, 1])
upload_0:
  measurement: 13
  nonce: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
  public_share: >-
    9a000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001eb3a1bd6b5fa4a4500
    000000000000000000000000000000ffffffff0000000022522c3fd5a33cac000000
    00000000000000000000000000ffffffff0000000069f41eee46542b690000000000
    00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
    0000000000000000017d1fd6df94280145a0dcc933ceb706e9219d50e7c4f92fd8ca
    9a0ffb7d819646
  input_share_0: >-
    0101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101c226
    c4542c79eafa04ece4b493baadd00114dd7a8f91b9a25b767f43733c467d2cbb7fb5
    fe9782d0a51919f2bc2b6aa57442f7b923b9a700c7ab7a6c0aaff428ee671e1ed22f
    12dbb4714b53b11f3e0354cd5709f04c6bb9b0563499a7bd94c11d6d48c24ddc68a4
    b6477c2847d8218a
  input_share_1: >-
    01010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010e6b
    27437d25adc6b565aa093dcc0d27507481df2f19d80abebe750f4b0ab4b6eb20a7de
    2aebb5f610e65647225d4a1851709e3b8c95c38eccf85ffebf320fae04f6826999af
    0782036a9671411b0676717cc6a0b8fd87177836f1fd980d49e4ad23f31e83a99cea
    313c614e7106ec80

Preparation, Aggregation, and Unsharding

verify_key: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
agg_param: (0, [0, 1])
upload_0:
  round_0:
    prep_share_0: >-
      d15f37fd8d2de10c3eec340265f8bfaa6ea7b79536b4d12a
    prep_share_1: >-
      7e02697276b506ca402eca93b7dcf770877dff591d6fd9c5
    prep_message: >-
      4f61a17103e2e7d57f1afe961dd5b71af625b6ee5424aaef
  round_1:
    prep_share_0: >-
      cba373c9458c26ee
    prep_share_1: >-
      345c8c35ba73d913
    prep_message: >-
  out_share_0:
    - 18188801410092473065
    - 309938393258542164
  out_share_1:
    - 257942659322111256
    - 18136805676156042158
agg_share_0: >-
  fc6b9a839aaf9ae9044d1f53986e4454
agg_share_1: >-
  0394657b65506518fbb2e0ab6791bbae
agg_result: [0, 1]
verify_key: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
agg_param: (1, [0, 1, 2, 3])
upload_0:
  round_0:
    prep_share_0: >-
      9b0474605d77d4791a43cb86dc332a15b8b5f67496aa4b8d
    prep_share_1: >-
      92b13576b734a956e93851d81193d503bae64c3cda971dfb
    prep_message: >-
      2db5a9d814ac7dce037c1d5fedc6ff17739c42b271416987
  round_1:
    prep_share_0: >-
      aecb3ecaafff0dbe
    prep_share_1: >-
      5134c1345000f243
    prep_message: >-
  out_share_0:
    - 16639637265869957457
    - 1807457878431656707
    - 14875784335609201424
    - 8515527061577716649
  out_share_1:
    - 1807106803544626864
    - 16639286190982927614
    - 3570959733805382897
    - 9931217007836867673
agg_share_0: >-
  e6ebddeec787e9511915615d36666b03ce716709b74e8310762d3abecc90d3a9
agg_share_1: >-
  19142210387816b0e6ea9ea1c99994fe318e98f548b17cf189d2c540336f2c59
agg_result: [0, 0, 0, 1]
verify_key: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
agg_param: (2, [0, 2, 4, 6])
upload_0:
  round_0:
    prep_share_0: >-
      93df236f6e786bca97233e32224a1941f6dd3a9511e01acc
    prep_share_1: >-
      2ab413234f2bec549b6546e4d96fee4bad6957e433768506
    prep_message: >-
      be933692bda4581e32888517fbba078ba446927a45569fd1
  round_1:
    prep_share_0: >-
      c36e1270495f5aa6
    prep_share_1: >-
      3c91ed8eb6a0a55b
    prep_message: >-
  out_share_0:
    - 3024081010823632913
    - 6306522542811675542
    - 2996392641000911092
    - 7890625214403888205
  out_share_1:
    - 15422663058590951408
    - 12140221526602908779
    - 15450351428413673229
    - 10556118855010696117
agg_share_0: >-
  29f7b1a836259811578544d6dc487b962995533b3e7430f46d8121d38048c44d
agg_share_1: >-
  d6084e56c9da67f0a87abb2823b7846bd66aacc3c18bcf0d927ede2b7fb73bb5
agg_result: [0, 0, 0, 1]
verify_key: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
agg_param: (3, [1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, 15])
upload_0:
upload_0:
  measurement: 13
  nonce: "01010101010101010101010101010101"
  public_share: >-
    9a000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001eb3a1bd6b5fa4a4500
    000000000000000000000000000000ffffffff0000000022522c3fd5a33cac000000
    00000000000000000000000000ffffffff0000000069f41eee46542b690000000000
    00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
    0000000000000000017d1fd6df94280145a0dcc933ceb706e9219d50e7c4f92fd8ca
    9a0ffb7d819646
  input_share_0: >-
    0101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101c226
    c4542c79eafa04ece4b493baadd00114dd7a8f91b9a25b767f43733c467d2cbb7fb5
    fe9782d0a51919f2bc2b6aa57442f7b923b9a700c7ab7a6c0aaff428ee671e1ed22f
    12dbb4714b53b11f3e0354cd5709f04c6bb9b0563499a7bd94c11d6d48c24ddc68a4
    b6477c2847d8218a
  input_share_1: >-
    01010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010e6b
    27437d25adc6b565aa093dcc0d27507481df2f19d80abebe750f4b0ab4b6eb20a7de
    2aebb5f610e65647225d4a1851709e3b8c95c38eccf85ffebf320fae04f6826999af
    0782036a9671411b0676717cc6a0b8fd87177836f1fd980d49e4ad23f31e83a99cea
    313c614e7106ec80
  round_0:
    prep_share_0: >-
      0940b06b287f0232397df2414c00cd0ccfb08f955bf4089651f019458cd7da2204
      c997d78134341745669b19da58cbef280f712d12900475ac2c4de486e9870774ba
      3c9d024245e7866528e37b9a931e61b794ab12a4bf74b41de50cec5f1214
    prep_share_1: >-
      605b876c915cb4b2d94c5999ab0642e81eefe4b06ac936b2cd9608ffeb9a6c8a45
      a9faa5b4940cdc375043075990f115770cbb762f2baf1bf9024c36685cf3051607
      a3331e036072b0202bb89be78d7ad8f8c07fbf2761884dcb4f414e966562
    prep_message: >-
      699c37d7b9dbb6e512ca4bdaf7070ff4eea07445c6bd3f491f862245787246ac4a
      73927d35c840f37cb6de2133e9bd049f1c2ca341bbb391a52e9a1aef467a0c0ac1
      dfd02045a65a3685549c178220993ab0552ad1cc20fd01e9344e3af57789
  round_1:
    prep_share_0: >-
      69ac4b4219b647d08579ebc1d61e15a87684c817b8e9e2f599dec39dd42c60e0
    prep_share_1: >-
      1653b4bde649b82f7a86143e29e1ea57897b37e847161d0a66213c622bd39f0d
    prep_message: >-
  out_share_0:
    - 31266787981623073345438631450097917412029050287225674733758559830914037991840
    - 26393661814069127500656687560668964619575440551355825110935075749282733430112
    - 29174096716912605985872100661347047626133976434476959088535854022406688824676
    - 37302603208117590782775952507020589026342905631492315271787751917771005617295
    - 55309420117672678173715719521410144937198418175813304907316032334662803449360
    - 29174390317706805594521496894406843472816744180092642437922410411508000504883
    - 21223279146307403682071881696710510174726527474394063793607036387613816968277
  out_share_1:
    - 26629256637035024366346861054246036514605942045594607285970232173042526828109
    - 31502382804588970211128804943674989307059551781464456908793716254673831389837
    - 28721947901745491725913391842996906300501015898343322931192937981549875995273
    - 20593441410540506929009539997323364900292086701327966747941040086185559202654
    - 2586624500985419538069772982933808989436574157006977112412759669293761370589
    - 28721654300951292117263995609937110453818248152727639581806381592448564315067
    - 36672765472350694029713610807633443751908464858426218226121755616342747851672
agg_share_0: >-
  45205ff6efcf67961cc100e880f3c58d5ce283585caf7fb58e09c24ba9bc49a03a5a48
  7f662ab7b240b41b6c3ac345c3754b43cbb1a5d8158e8859d1994d1560407ff41dd4ca
  cc470b3c428a61fa974d6cf9b1d14c6db9401f0e174ffce55d64527886748fe09c86af
  d58b7e7717c47ee97309fefeda64830940348d97e3e48f7a4805bcea0d023dffa0d3cb
  1bda898326421778e72467244acb17f472a4e61040801ea8170611e914421029a53aa0
  1b494ff834cf2e01239409a37b99623c332eebf34778eee2356d44b95a1681d1f394f7
  fe66cad88d59fcb458283e84d455
agg_share_1: >-
  3adfa00910309869e33eff177f0c3a72a31d7ca7a350804a71f63db45643b64d45a5b7
  8099d5484dbf4be493c53cba3c8ab4bc344e5a27ea7177a62e66b2ea8d3f800be22b35
  33b8f4c3bd759e0568b293064e2eb39246bfe0f1e8b0031aa2892d87798b701f637950
  2a748188e83b81168cf60101259b7cf6bfcb72681c1b5e05b7fa4315f2fdc2005f2c34
  e425767cd9bde88718db98dbb534e80b8d5b19dd3f7fe157e8f9ee16ebbdefd65ac55f
  e4b6b007cb30d1fedc6bf65c84669dc3bb51140cb887111dca92bb46a5e97e2e0c6b08
  0199352772a6034ba7d7c17b2b98
agg_result: [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0]

Authors' Addresses

Richard L. Barnes
Cisco
Christopher Patton
Cloudflare
Phillipp Schoppmann
Google