International Association
for Cryptologic Research

The Fiat-Shamir (FS) transform is a popular technique for obtaining practical zero-knowledge argument systems. It uses a hash function to generate, without any overhead, NIZK argument systems from public-coin honest-verifier zero-knowledge (HVZK) proof systems. In the proof of zero knowledge the hash function is modeled as a programmable random oracle (PRO).

In TCC 2015, Lindell embarked in the challenging task of obtaining a similar transform with improved heuristic security. Lindell showed that, for several interesting and practical languages, there exists an efficient transform in the non-programmable random oracle (NPRO) model, using also a common reference string (CRS).

A major contribution of Lindell\'s transform is that zero knowledge is proved without random oracles and this is an important step towards achieving efficient NIZK arguments in the CRS model without random oracles.

In this work, we analyze the efficiency and generality of Lindell\'s transform and notice a significant gap w.r.t. the FS transform. We then propose a new transform that aims at filling this gap. Indeed ourtransform is almost as efficient as the FS transform and can be applied to a broad class of public-coin HVZK proof systems.

Our transform requires a CRS and an NPRO in the proof of soundness,

similarly to Lindell\'s transform.