# Schnorr signatures

If you follow the crypto news, you'll know that that new hotness in Bitcoin is Schnorr Signatures.

But in actual fact, they're old news! The Schnorr signature is considered the simplest digital signature scheme to be provably secure in a random oracle model. It is efficient and generates short signatures. It was covered by U.S. Patent 4,995,082 which expired in February 2008 [1].

## So why all the fuss?

What makes Schnorr signatures so interesting, and potentially dangerous, is their simplicity. Schnorr signatures are linear, so you have some nice properties.

Elliptic curves have the multiplicative property. So if you have two scalars x, y with corresponding points, X, Y, the following holds:

$$(x + y)G = xG + yG = X + Y$$

Schnorr signatures are of the form $s = r + e.k$. This construction is linear too, so it fits nicely with the linearity of elliptic curve math.

You saw this property in the previous section, when we were verifying the signature. Schnorr signatures' linearity makes it very attractive for things like

## (Naïve) Signature aggregation

Let's see how the linearity property of Schnorr signatures can be used to construct a 2-of-2 multi-signature.

Alice and Bob want to co-sign something (a Tari transaction, say) without having to trust each other; i.e. they need to be able to prove ownership of their respective keys, and the aggregate signature is only valid if both Alice and Bob provide their part of the signature.

Assuming private keys are denoted $k_i$ and public keys $P_i$. If we ask Alice and Bob to each supply a nonce, we can try:

\begin{align} P_{agg} &= P_a + P_b \\ e &= H(R_a || R_b || P_a || P_b || m) \\ s_{agg} &= r_a + r_b + (k_a + k_b)e \\ &= (r_a + k_ae) + (r_b + k_ae) \\ &= s_a + s_b \end{align}

So it looks like Alice and Bob can supply their own R, and anyone can construct the 2-of-2 signature from the sum of the Rs and public keys. This does work:

extern crate libsecp256k1_rs as secp256k1;

use secp256k1::schnorr::{Schnorr, Challenge};

#[allow(non_snake_case)]
fn main() {
// Alice generates some keys
let (ka, Pa, ra, Ra) = get_keyset();
// Bob generates some keys
let (kb, Pb, rb, Rb) = get_keyset();
let m = Message::hash(b"a multisig transaction").unwrap();
// The challenge uses both nonce public keys and private keys
// e = H(Ra || Rb || Pa || Pb || H(m))
let e = Challenge::new(&[&Ra, &Rb, &Pa, &Pb, &m]).as_scalar().unwrap();
// Alice calculates her signature
let sa = ra + ka * e;
// Bob calculates his signature
let sb = rb + kb * e;
// Calculate the aggregate signature
let s_agg = sa + sb;
// S = s_agg.G
let S = PublicKey::from_secret_key(&s_agg);
// This should equal Ra + Rb + e(Pa + Pb)
assert_eq!(S, Ra + Rb + e*(Pa + Pb));
println!("The aggregate signature is valid!")
}

#[allow(non_snake_case)]
fn get_keyset() -> (SecretKey, PublicKey, SecretKey, PublicKey) {
let k = SecretKey::random(&mut rng);
let P = PublicKey::from_secret_key(&k);
let r = SecretKey::random(&mut rng);
let R = PublicKey::from_secret_key(&r);
(k, P, r, R)
}



But this scheme is not secure!

## Key cancellation attack

Let's take the previous scenario again, but this time, Bob knows Alice's public key and nonce ahead of time, by waiting until she reveals them.

Now Bob lies, and says that his public key is $P_b' = P_b - P_a$ and public nonce is $R_b' = R_b - R_a$.

Note that Bob doesn't know the private keys for these faked values, but that doesn't matter.

Everyone assumes that $s_{agg} = R_a + R_b' + e(P_a + P_b')$ as per the aggregation scheme.

But Bob can create this signature himself:

\begin{align} s_{agg}G &= R_a + R_b' + e(P_a + P_b') \\ &= R_a + (R_b - R_a) + e(P_a + P_b - P_a) \\ &= R_b + eP_b \\ &= r_bG + ek_bG \\ \therefore s_{agg} &= r_b + ek_b = s_b \end{align}

extern crate libsecp256k1_rs as secp256k1;

use secp256k1::schnorr::{Schnorr, Challenge};

#[allow(non_snake_case)]
fn main() {
// Alice generates some keys
let (ka, Pa, ra, Ra) = get_keyset();
// Bob generates some keys as before
let (kb, Pb, rb, Rb) = get_keyset();
// ..and then publishes his forged keys
let Pf = Pb - Pa;
let Rf = Rb - Ra;

let m = Message::hash(b"a multisig transaction").unwrap();
// The challenge uses both nonce public keys and private keys
// e = H(Ra || Rb' || Pa || Pb' || H(m))
let e = Challenge::new(&[&Ra, &Rf, &Pa, &Pf, &m]).as_scalar().unwrap();

// Bob creates a forged signature
let s_f = rb + e * kb;
// Check if it's valid
let sG = Ra + Rf + e*(Pa + Pf);
assert_eq!(sG, PublicKey::from_secret_key(&s_f));
println!("Bob successfully forged the aggregate signature!")
}

#[allow(non_snake_case)]
fn get_keyset() -> (SecretKey, PublicKey, SecretKey, PublicKey) {
let k = SecretKey::random(&mut rng);
let P = PublicKey::from_secret_key(&k);
let r = SecretKey::random(&mut rng);
let R = PublicKey::from_secret_key(&r);
(k, P, r, R)
}



## Better approaches to aggregation

In the key attack above, Bob didn't know the private keys for his published R and P values. We could defeat Bob by asking him to sign a message proving that he does know the private keys.

This works, but it requires another round of messaging between parties, which is not conducive to a great user experience.

A better approach would be one that incorporates one or more of the following features:

• Must be provably secure in the plain public-key model, without having to prove knowledge of secret keys, as we might have asked Bob to do in the naïve approach above;
• should satisfy the normal Schnorr equation, i.e. the resulting signature can be verified with an expression of the form $R + e X$.
• allows for Interactive Aggregate Signatures (IAS) where the signers are required to cooperate;
• allows for Non-interactive Aggregate Signatures (NAS) where the aggregation can be done by anyone;
• allow each signer to sign the same message, m;
• allow each signer to sign their own message, $m_i$.

# MuSig

MuSig is a recently proposed [2],[3] simple signature aggregation scheme that satisfies all of the properties above.

We'll demonstrate the interactive MuSig scheme here, where each signatory signs the same message. The scheme works as follows:

1. Each signer has a public-private key pair as before.
2. Each signer publishes the public key of their nonce, $R_i$,
3. Everyone calculates the same "shared public key", X as follows: \begin{align} \ell &= H(X_1 || \dots || X_n) \\ a_i &= H(\ell || X_i) \\ X &= \sum a_i X_i \\ \end{align} Note that in the ordering of public keys above, some deterministic convention should be used, such as the lexicographical order of the serialised keys.
4. Everyone also calculates the shared nonce, $R = \sum R_i$.
5. The challenge, e is $H(R || X || m)$
6. Each signer provides their contribution to the signature as $$s_i = r_i + k_i a_i e$$ Notice that the only departure here from a standard Schnorr signature is the inclusion of the factor $a_i$.
7. The aggregate signature is the usual summation, $s = \sum s_i$.

Verification is done by confirming that

$$sG \equiv R + e X \$$

as usual. Proof:

\begin{align} sG &= \sum s_i G \\ &= \sum (r_i + k_i a_i e)G \\ &= \sum r_iG + k_iG a_i e \\ &= \sum R_i + X_i a_i e \\ &= \sum R_i + e \sum a_i X_i \\ &= R + e X \\ \blacksquare \end{align}

Let's demonstrate this using a three-of-three multisig:

extern crate libsecp256k1_rs as secp256k1;

use secp256k1::{ SecretKey, PublicKey, thread_rng, Message };
use secp256k1::schnorr::{ Challenge };

#[allow(non_snake_case)]
fn main() {
let (k1, X1, r1, R1) = get_keys();
let (k2, X2, r2, R2) = get_keys();
let (k3, X3, r3, R3) = get_keys();

// I'm setting the order here. In general, they'll be sorted
let l = Challenge::new(&[&X1, &X2, &X3]);
// ai = H(l || p)
let a1 = Challenge::new(&[ &l, &X1 ]).as_scalar().unwrap();
let a2 = Challenge::new(&[ &l, &X2 ]).as_scalar().unwrap();
let a3 = Challenge::new(&[ &l, &X3 ]).as_scalar().unwrap();
// X = sum( a_i X_i)
let X = a1 * X1 + a2 * X2 + a3 * X3;

let m = Message::hash(b"SomeSharedMultiSigTx").unwrap();

// Calc shared nonce
let R = R1 + R2 + R3;

// e = H(R || X || m)
let e = Challenge::new(&[&R, &X, &m]).as_scalar().unwrap();

// Signatures
let s1 = r1 + k1 * a1 * e;
let s2 = r2 + k2 * a2 * e;
let s3 = r3 + k3 * a3 * e;
let s = s1 + s2 + s3;

//Verify
let sg = PublicKey::from_secret_key(&s);
let check = R + e * X;
assert_eq!(sg, check, "The signature is INVALID");
println!("The signature is correct!")
}

#[allow(non_snake_case)]
fn get_keys() -> (SecretKey, PublicKey, SecretKey, PublicKey) {
let k = SecretKey::random(&mut rng);
let P = PublicKey::from_secret_key(&k);
let r = SecretKey::random(&mut rng);
let R = PublicKey::from_secret_key(&r);
(k, P, r, R)
}


## Security demonstration

As a final demonstration, let's show how MuSig defeats the cancellation attack from the naïve signature scheme described above. Using the same idea as in the previous section, Bob has provided fake values for his nonce and public keys:

\begin{align} R_f &= R_b - R_a \\ X_f &= X_b - X_a \\ \end{align}

This leads to both Alice and Bob calculating the following "shared" values:

\begin{align} \ell &= H(X_a || X_f) \\ a_a &= H(\ell || X_a) \\ a_f &= H(\ell || X_f) \\ X &= a_a X_a + a_f X_f \\ R &= R_a + R_f (= R_b) \\ e &= H(R || X || m) \end{align}

He then tries to construct a unilateral signature following MuSig:

$$s_b = r_b + k_s e$$

Let's assume for now that $k_s$ doesn't need to be Bob's private key, but that he can derive it using information he knows. For this to be a valid signature, it must verify to $R + eX$. So therefore

\begin{align} s_b G &= R + eX \\ (r_b + k_s e)G &= R_b + e(a_a X_a + a_f X_f) & \text{The first term looks good so far}\\ &= R_b + e(a_a X_a + a_f X_b - a_f X_a) \\ &= (r_b + e a_a k_a + e a_f k_b - e a_f k_a)G & \text{The r terms cancel as before} \\ k_s e &= e a_a k_a + e a_f k_b - e a_f k_a & \text{But nothing else is going away}\\ k_s &= a_a k_a + a_f k_b - a_f k_a \\ \end{align}

In the previous attack, Bob had all the information he needed on the right-hand side of the analogous calculation. In MuSig, Bob must somehow know Alice's private key and the faked private key (the terms don't cancel anymore) in order to create a unilateral signature and so his cancellation attack is defeated.

# References

• [1]: Schnorr signature, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnorr_signature, Date accessed: 19 September 2018
• [2]: Key Aggregation for Schnorr Signatures, Blockstream, https://blockstream.com/2018/01/23/musig-key-aggregation-schnorr-signatures.html, Date accessed: 19 September 2018
• [3]: Simple Schnorr Multi-Signatures with Applications to Bitcoin, Maxwell et. al., https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/068.pdf