Bell Labs Internship on secure Zero-Knowledge Proofs (Master student)

Descrizione del lavoro:

Job Description

Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) are a novel cryptographic technique that allows one party (the prover) to prove to another party (the verifier) that a program was executed correctly, but without revealing confidential inputs. They are often used in the context of blockchain and smart contracts, e.g. to prove that a transaction was executed correctly without revealing transaction details such as account numbers or balances. Moreover, ZKPs can be applied more generally in contexts where privacy and confidentiality are essential, e.g. when aggregating sensor data to be used for telemetry, remote monitoring, or predictive maintenance. For example, in health care, ZKPs can be used to aggregate patient data without revealing individuals' details.

Over the last few years, several programming languages and frameworks have been developed to program ZKPs. These include Circom, ZoKrates, RISC-Zero, Noir, Leo, Cairo, and Lurk [1]. However, programming ZKPs is tricky: a tiny mistake may expose confidential data accidentally (e.g. revealing transaction details) or may make it possible to "prove" spurious results (e.g. prove an invalid transaction). Such bugs have been found in widely used applications [2,3,4].

The aim of this project is to systematically find and categorize bugs and vulnerabilities that affect programs using ZKPs. First, you will look for existing ZKP programs and their (known or unknown) bugs. Next, you will look for common bug patterns, classify and name them, and examine their properties (e.g. does it affect the prover or the verifier, is it application-specific or generic…). This will result in a taxonomy of ZKP vulnerabilities, which can be used to detect and prevent these vulnerabilities in future applications.

[1] https://docs.circom.io, https://zokrates.github.io, https://www.risczero.com, https://noir-lang.org, https://leo-lang.org, https://cairo-lang.org, https://lurk-lang.org

[2] https://blockworks.co/news/exploit-bug-zksync-matter-labs, https://medium.com/chainlight/uncovering-a-zk-evm-soundness-bug-in-zksync-era-f3bc1b2a66d8, https://immunefi.com/bounty/zksync/

[3] https://github.com/0xPARC/zk-bug-tracker

[4] https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/547

Duration:

* Flexible, to be agreed (typically 3-4 months), starting time flexible
* The internship can be part of a Master thesis

Location: Antwerp (Belgium)

Responsibilities

* You will explore and experiment with frameworks and programming languages for developing Zero-Knowledge Proofs.
* You will examine existing ZKP programs to detect bugs and vulnerabilities.
* You will look for patterns in these bugs and categorize them, creating a taxonomy of common ZKP vulnerabilities.
* This internship can be part of a Master thesis.
* Potentially, this internship results in a paper that can be published at a scientific venue.

Required Skills

* Student enrolled in a Master Computer Science/Engineering.
* Interest in exploring and understanding novel, domain-specific programming languages used in unfamiliar contexts (e.g. Circom, ZoKrates). You are expected to download and experiment with these languages.
* Interest in learning about cryptographic techniques and their novel applications.
* Experience with either cryptographic techniques and their attack vectors, or (static) program analysis to detect bugs is a plus.
* Experience with a wide variety of programming languages is a plus.
* Language skills: English

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