research/mimc_stark/README.md

Disclaimer

DO NOT USE FOR ANYTHING IN REAL LIFE. DO NOT ASSUME THE PROTOCOL DESCRIBED HERE IS SOUND. TALK TO A SPECIALIST IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO USE STARKS IN YOUR APPLICATION.

What is this?

See main article: https://vitalik.ca/general/2018/07/21/starks_part_3.html

This is a very basic implementation of a STARK on a MIMC computation that is probably (ie. definitely) broken in a few places but is intended as a proof of concept to show the rough level of complexity that is involved in implementing a simple STARK. A STARK is a really cool proof-of-computation scheme that allows you to create an efficiently verifiable proof that some computation was executed correctly; the verification time only rises logarithmically with the computation time, and that relies only on hashes and information theory for security.

The STARKs are done over a finite field chosen to have 2**32'th roots of unity (to facilitate STARKs), and NOT have 3rd roots of unity (to facilitate MIMC). The MIMC permutation in general takes the form:

                       k_1                     k_2
                        |                       |
                        v                       v
x0 ---> (x->x**3) ---> xor ---> (x->x**3) ---> xor --- ... ---> output

Where the k_i values are round constants. MIMC can be used as a building block in a hash function, or as a verifiable delay function; its simple arithmetic representation makes it ideal for use in STARKs, SNARKs, MPC and other "cryptography over general-purpose computation" schemes.

The MIMC round constants used here are successive powers of 9 mod 2**256 xored with 1, though could be set to anything. The computational trace is computed over successive powers of a 2**k'th root of unity. This allows the constraint checking polynomial to be C(P(x), P(r*x), K(x)) = P(r*x) - P(x)**3 - K(x).

For a description of how STARKs work, see:

• STARKs, part 1: Proofs with Polynomials
• STARKs, part 2: Thank Goodness it's FRI-day

For more discussion on MIMC, see:

• Zcash issue 2233

How does the STARK scheme here work?

Here are the approximate steps in the code. Note that all arithmetic is done over the finite field of integers mod 2**256 - 2**32 * 351 + 1.

1. Let P[0] equal the input, and P[i+1] = P[i]**3 + K[i], up to steps (where steps must be a power of 2)
2. Construct a polynomial where P(subroot ^ i) = P[i] up to steps-1, where subroot is a steps'th root of unity (that is, subroot**steps = 1). Do the same with K.
3. Construct the polynomial CP(x) = C(P(x), P(x * subroot), K(x)). Note that since P(x * subroot) = P(x) ^ 3 + K(x), CP(x) = 0 for any x inside the computation trace (that is, powers of subroot except the last).
4. Construct the polynomial Z(x), which is the minimal polynomial that is 0 across the computation trace. Note that because Z is minimal, CP must be a multiple of Z.
5. Construct D = CP / Z. Because CP is a multiple of Z, D must itself be a low-degree polynomial.
6. Put D and P into Merkle trees.
7. Construct L = D + k * x**steps * P, where k is selected based on the Merkle roots of D and P.
8. Create an FRI proof that L is low-degree ((7) and (8) together are a clever way of making an aggregate low-degree proof of D and P)
9. Create probabilistic checks, using the Merkle root of L as source data, to spot-check that D(x) * Z(x) actually equal C(P(x)).

The probabilistic checks and the FRI proof are themselves restricted to 2**precision'th roots of unity, where precision = 8 * steps (so we're FRI checking that the degree of L, which equals twice the degree of P, is at most 1/4 the theoretical maximum).