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  4. Mechanisms for Provable Integrity Protection in Decentralized Systems

Mechanisms for Provable Integrity Protection in Decentralized Systems

File(s)
Cecchetti_cornellgrad_0058F_12682.pdf (978.72 KB)
Permanent Link(s)
https://doi.org/10.7298/5cc3-zh54
https://hdl.handle.net/1813/110522
Collections
Cornell Theses and Dissertations
Author
Cecchetti, Ethan
Abstract

Decentralized systems are built from a set of coordinating independent services. Yet these services might not trust each other, making it difficult to maintain the integrity of the whole application. This dissertation explores two different approaches to achieving provable integrity guarantees in such systems. The first technique, realized in Solidus, applies cryptographic tools to provably preserve the integrity of a blockchain-based financial transaction system while hiding the sender, receiver, and value of each transaction. The second complements the cryptographic approach by showing how to achieve strong integrity guarantees for realistic systems using language-based Information Flow Control (IFC). Traditional IFC systems only provide strong integrity guarantees in the absence of endorsement---treating inputs as more trusted than their source---but endorsement is necessary in real-world systems. This work classifies two ways in which unrestricted endorsements can compromise system integrity if attackers violate implicit assumptions. In both cases, IFC ideas help define security and support language-based rules to provably eliminate all attacks in the class.

Description
284 pages
Date Issued
2021-08
Keywords
Cryptography
•
Decentralized Systems
•
Information Flow Control
•
Integrity
•
Programming Languages
Committee Chair
Myers, Andrew C.
Committee Member
Juels, Ari
Kozen, Dexter
Degree Discipline
Computer Science
Degree Name
Ph. D., Computer Science
Degree Level
Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International
Rights URI
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Type
dissertation or thesis
Link(s) to Catalog Record
https://newcatalog.library.cornell.edu/catalog/15160102

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