Merge pull request bitcoin#176 from sipa/201912_linear_is_easy

Linearity makes sign-for-sum-of-keys easier, not possible entirely.

Author: sipa

bip-schnorr.mediawiki

@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ compared to [http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/opus4/files/4280/schnorr.p
 
 * '''Provable security''': Schnorr signatures are provably secure. In more detail, they are ''strongly unforgeable under chosen message attack (SUF-CMA)''<ref>Informally, this means that without knowledge of the secret key but given valid signatures of arbitrary messages, it is not possible to come up with further valid signatures.</ref> [https://www.di.ens.fr/~pointche/Documents/Papers/2000_joc.pdf in the random oracle model assuming the hardness of the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem (ECDLP)] and [http://www.neven.org/papers/schnorr.pdf in the generic group model assuming variants of preimage and second preimage resistance of the used hash function]<ref>A detailed security proof in the random oracle model, which essentially restates [https://www.di.ens.fr/~pointche/Documents/Papers/2000_joc.pdf the original security proof by Pointcheval and Stern] more explicitly, can be found in [https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/191 a paper by Kiltz, Masny and Pan]. All these security proofs assume a variant of Schnorr signatures that use ''(e,s)'' instead of ''(R,s)'' (see Design above). Since we use a unique encoding of ''R'', there is an efficiently computable bijection that maps ''(R,s)'' to ''(e,s)'', which allows to convert a successful SUF-CMA attacker for the ''(e,s)'' variant to a successful SUF-CMA attacker for the ''(R,s)'' variant (and vice-versa). Furthermore, the proofs consider a variant of Schnorr signatures without key prefixing (see Design above), but it can be verified that the proofs are also correct for the variant with key prefixing. As a result, all the aforementioned security proofs apply to the variant of Schnorr signatures proposed in this document.</ref>. In contrast, the [https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-60803 best known results for the provable security of ECDSA] rely on stronger assumptions.
 * '''Non-malleability''': The SUF-CMA security of Schnorr signatures implies that they are non-malleable. On the other hand, ECDSA signatures are inherently malleable<ref>If ''(r,s)'' is a valid ECDSA signature for a given message and key, then ''(r,n-s)'' is also valid for the same message and key. If ECDSA is restricted to only permit one of the two variants (as Bitcoin does through a policy rule on the network), it can be [https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-60803 proven] non-malleable under stronger than usual assumptions.</ref>; a third party without access to the secret key can alter an existing valid signature for a given public key and message into another signature that is valid for the same key and message. This issue is discussed in [https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0062.mediawiki BIP62] and [https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0146.mediawiki BIP146].
-* '''Linearity''': Schnorr signatures have the remarkable property that multiple parties can collaborate to produce a signature that is valid for the sum of their public keys. This is the building block for various higher-level constructions that improve efficiency and privacy, such as multisignatures and others (see Applications below).
+* '''Linearity''': Schnorr signatures provide a simple and efficient method that enables multiple collaborating parties to produce a signature that is valid for the sum of their public keys. This is the building block for various higher-level constructions that improve efficiency and privacy, such as multisignatures and others (see Applications below).
 
 For all these advantages, there are virtually no disadvantages, apart
 from not being standardized. This document seeks to change that. As we