New Protocols for Proving Knowledge of Arbitrary Secrets While not Giving Them Away

This paper introduces and describes new protocols for proving knowledge of secrets without giving them away: if the verifier does not know the secret, he does not learn it. Three role configurations exist for this type of protocols: (1) the prover may want to pro-actively prove knowledge of a secret, (2) a verifier may ask someone to prove knowledge of a secret, or (3) two players may mutually prove knowledge of a secret. Protocols for all three cases are shown in this paper. This can all be done while only using one-way hash functions. If also the use of encryption is allowed, these goals can be reached in a more efficient way, giving a total of six protocols (three without encryption and three with). keywords protocols, zero knowledge, interactive proving, comparing information without leaking it (CIWLI), one-way hash functions, MAC’s, list intersection problem