[Resource Topic] 2016/683: Efficient Sparse Merkle Trees: Caching Strategies and Secure (Non-)Membership Proofs

Welcome to the resource topic for 2016/683

Title:
Efficient Sparse Merkle Trees: Caching Strategies and Secure (Non-)Membership Proofs

Authors: Rasmus Dahlberg, Tobias Pulls, Roel Peeters

Abstract:

A sparse Merkle tree is an authenticated data structure based on a perfect Merkle tree of intractable size. It contains a distinct leaf for every possible output from a cryptographic hash function, and can be simulated efficiently because the tree is sparse (i.e., most leaves are empty). We are the first to provide complete, succinct, and recursive definitions of a sparse Merkle tree and related operations. We show that our definitions enable efficient space-time trade-offs for different caching strategies, and that verifiable audit paths can be generated to prove (non-)membership in practically constant time (<4 ms) when using SHA-512/256. This is despite a limited amount of space for the cache—smaller than the size of the underlying data structure being authenticated—and full (concrete) security in the multi-instance setting.

ePrint: https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/683

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