Circuitree: A Datalog Reasoner in Zero-Knowledge

• Published in: IEEE access 2022-01, Vol.10, p.21384-21396
• Main Authors: Godden, Tom, Smet, Ruben De, Debruyne, Christophe, Vandervelden, Thibaut, Steenhaut, Kris, Braeken, An
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access control; Arithmetic; blockchain; Blockchains; bulletproofs; Computer languages; Computer science; COVID-19; datalog; Engineering, computing & technology; High level languages; identity management; Ingénierie, informatique & technologie; Languages; Logic; Logic gates; Privacy; privacy-enhancing technologies; Sciences informatiques; security; Social networks; verifiable computation; zero-knowledge proof
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3153366

Driven by the increased consciousness in data ownership and privacy, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) have become a popular tool to convince a third party of the truthfulness of a statement without disclosing any further information. As ZKPs are rather complex to design, frameworks that transform high-level languages into ZKPs have been proposed. We propose Circuitree, a Datalog reasoner in zero-knowledge. Datalog is a high-level declarative logic language that is generally used for querying. Furthermore, as a logic language, it can also be used to solve logic problems. An application using Circuitree can efficiently generate ZKPs, based on Datalog rules and encrypted data, to prove that a certain conclusion follows from a Datalog ruleset and encrypted input data. Compared to existing frameworks, which generally use their own limited imperative languages, Circuitree uses an existing high-level declarative language. We point out several applications for Circuitree, including EU Digital COVID Certificates and privacy-preserving access control for peer-to-peer (p2p) networks. Circuitree's performance is evaluated for access control in a p2p network. First results show that our approach allows for fast proofs and proof verification for this application.