MSc Thesis: Zero-Knowledge Authentication Protocols

Note: If your are not familiar with the concept of zero-knowledge, I strongly recommend that your read my short description on this topic first.

My aim in this thesis is to improve a zero-knowledge authentication protocol (ZKAP), or develop a new one. The resulting protocol should be better than any existing ZKAPs.

You may ask: What does "better" mean? Good question. A better protocol is one that:

• Improves the security of an existing protocol;
• Improves the complexity of an existing protocol;
• Adds an exiting feature;
• ...

After reading a number of references, I understood that there's a lower bound on the round complexity of non-trivial ZK proofs (4 moves, or equivalently 2 rounds)^[1]. I'm currently working on this aspect. I think I can establish a generic methodology based on which min-round ZKAPs can be constructed. This methodology is simple at first glance, but there's an underlying complexity which I'm dealing with.

Unfortunately, there's no one with whom I discuss my approach. So, I'll need to read more to make sure I'm right. If you are interested in discussing this topic, please feel free to contact me (Here's my contact info).

[1] A type of ZK proofs, called resettable ZK (rZK) is proved to have 3-move non-trivial ZK proof. However, this new bound is based on certain assumptions.