round-based

An MPC framework that unifies and simplifies the way of developing and working with multiparty protocols (e.g. threshold signing, random beacons, etc.).

Goals

• Async friendly
  Async is the most simple and efficient way of doing networking in Rust
• Simple, configurable
  Protocol can be carried out in a few lines of code: check out examples.
• Independent of networking layer
  You may define your own networking layer and you don't need to change anything in protocol implementation: it's agnostic of networking by default! So you can use central delivery server, distributed redis nodes, postgres database, p2p channels, or a public blockchain, or whatever else fits your needs.

Example

MPC protocol execution typically looks like this:

// protocol to be executed, takes MPC engine `M`, index of party `i`,
// and number of participants `n`
async fn keygen<M>(mpc: M, i: u16, n: u16) -> Result<KeyShare>
where
    M: round_based::Mpc<Msg = KeygenMsg>
{
    // ...
}
// establishes network connection(s) to other parties so they may communicate
async fn connect() ->
    impl futures::Stream<Item = Result<round_based::Incoming<KeygenMsg>>>
        + futures::Sink<round_based::Outgoing<KeygenMsg>, Error = Error>
        + Unpin
{
    // ...
}
let delivery = connect().await;

// constructs an MPC engine, which, primarily, is used to communicate with
// other parties
let mpc = round_based::mpc::connected(delivery);

// execute the protocol
let keyshare = keygen(mpc, i, n).await?;

Networking

In order to run an MPC protocol, transport layer needs to be defined. All you have to do is to provide a channel which implements a stream and a sink for receiving and sending messages.

async fn connect() ->
    impl futures::Stream<Item = Result<round_based::Incoming<Msg>>>
        + futures::Sink<round_based::Outgoing<Msg>, Error = Error>
        + Unpin
{
    // ...
}

let delivery = connect().await;
let party = round_based::mpc::connected(delivery);

// run the protocol

In order to guarantee the protocol security, it may require:

• Message Authentication
  Guarantees message source and integrity. If protocol requires it, make sure message was sent by claimed sender and that it hasn't been tampered with.
  This is typically achieved either through public-key cryptography (e.g., signing with a private key) or through symmetric mechanisms like MACs (e.g., HMAC) or authenticated encryption (AEAD) in point-to-point scenarios.
• Message Privacy
  When a p2p message is sent, only recipient shall be able to read the content.
  It can be achieved by using symmetric or asymmetric encryption, encryption methods come with their own trade-offs (e.g. simplicity vs forward secrecy).
• Reliable Broadcast
  When party receives a reliable broadcast message it shall be ensured that everybody else received the same message.
  Our library provides echo_broadcast support out-of-box that enforces broadcast reliability by adding an extra communication round per each round that requires reliable broadcast.
  More advanced techniques implement Byzantine fault tolerant broadcast

Developing MPC protocol with round_based

We plan to write a book guiding through MPC protocol development process, but while it's not done, you may refer to random beacon example and our well-documented API.

Features

• sim enables protocol execution simulation, see sim module
  • sim-async enables protocol execution simulation with tokio runtime, see sim::async_env module
• state-machine provides ability to carry out the protocol, defined as async function, via Sync API, see state_machine module
• echo-broadcast adds echo_broadcast support
• derive is needed to use ProtocolMsg proc macro
• runtime-tokio enables tokio-specific implementation of async runtime

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