From da701004f849e35066b955cfc3029bbc68f1c8c8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Christian Grothoff <christian@grothoff.org>
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2022 23:38:12 +0100
Subject: add CS news

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+{% extends "common/news.j2" %}
+{% block body_content %}
+<h1>2022-2: Adding Schnorr's Blind Signatures to Taler</h1>
+<p>
+Gian Demarmels and Lucien Heuzeveldt have finished their
+<a href="/papers/cs-thesis.pdf">Bachelor's thesis</a>
+which adds a second blind signature scheme to GNU Taler.
+</p>
+<p>
+  <video id="video" poster="/images/logo-2020.jpg" autobuffer="" height="360" width="640" controls="controls">
+    <source src="/videos/cs-movie.mp4" type="video/mp4" \>
+  </video>
+</p>
+<p>
+The goal of this thesis is to improve Taler’s performance and provide cipher agility by
+adding support for Schnorr’s blind signatures. To achieve this goal, the current state in
+research for Schnorr signatures needs to be analyzed. After choosing a signature scheme,
+it has to be integrated into the Taler protocols. Besides implementing the redesigned pro-
+tocols in Taler, an implementation of the cryptographic routines is needed.
+The paper ”Blind Schnorr Signatures and Signed ElGamal Encryption in the Algebraic Group
+Model” from 2019 (updated in 2021) introducing Clause Blind Schnorr Signatures
+is used as theoretical basis for our improvements. The paper explains why simple Blind
+Schnorr Signatures are broken and how the Clause Schnorr Blind Signature scheme is se-
+cured against this attack.
+</p>
+<p>
+Compared to the currently used RSA Blind Signatures, the new scheme has an additional
+request, two blinding factors instead of one and many calculations are done twice to pre-
+vent attacks.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Taler protocols were redesigned to support the Clause Blind Schnorr Signature scheme,
+including slight alterations to ensure abort-idempotency, and then further specified. Be-
+fore starting with the implementation of the redesigned protocols, the cryptographic rou-
+tines for Clause Blind Schnorr Signatures were implemented as part of the thesis.
+All of the implemented code is tested and benchmarks are added for the cryptographic
+routines.
+</p>
+<p>
+Multiple results were achieved during this thesis: The redesigned protocols Taler proto-
+cols with support for Clause Blind Schnorr Signatures, the implementation of the crypto-
+graphic routines, the implementation of Talers core protocols and a detailed comparison
+between RSA Blind Signatures and Clause Blind Schnorr Signatures. Overall, the Clause
+Blind Schnorr Signatures are significantly faster, require less disk space, and bandwidth
+and provide cipher agility for Taler.
+</p>
+
+{% endblock body_content %}
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