PoCK by Cornell researchers offers a breakthrough in preventing bribery in DAO voting systems.
Vitalik Buterin and the Cornell team tackle DAO vulnerabilities with new cryptographic methods.
The innovative PoCK approach secures DAO governance from external manipulation and bribery risks.
Cornell researchers, including Vitalik Buterin, are investigating how the usage of DAOs might be perplexing as such organizations gain popularity. They aim to avoid “dark” voting systems developing into a real threat to the effective functioning of DAOs.
PhD students Mahimna Kelkar, Kushal Babel, Philip Daian, and James Austgen, the research team primarily focuses on how bribery through intelligent contact might derail the decentralized cooperation within these organizations.
DAOs operate by allowing token holders to vote on decisions and proposals. However, this decentralized approach can be vulnerable to coordinated bribery attacks, where malicious actors offer financial incentives to sway votes in their favour.
Introduction of Proof of Complete Knowledge (PoCK)
To address such concerns, the researchers from Cornell have come up with what they call Proof of Complete Knowledge (PoCK). This new cryptographic method enhances a significant area for improving previous methodologies for proving knowledge.
In real Cryptography, Proof of Knowledge is an approach by which one party can ensure the other that he or she has a particular secret data, e.g., a Cryptographic key, and this is done without passing the key in the process.
However, this approach could be improved whereby the hidden information could be kept in the possession of some other external device; let us, for instance, consider a trusted computing base rather than possibly having the information in its possession.
Methods to Enforce PoCK
To mitigate the risk of bribery, the Cornell research team has proposed two critical methods for enforcing PoCK. The first method involves using a trusted execution environment TEE to prove that voters own and can use their voting key.
This ensures that even if a token holder is induced to change their vote, they can still do it correctly. Some of the information, for example, how the key is used, would not be subject to intervention by any external party achieved by TEE.
The second method uses integrated silicon, usually associated with Bitcoin mining, known as ASIC. By sending the voting key to an ASIC, the token holder can prove ownership while preventing the key’s use in a TEE environment.
Ensuring DAO Security and Integrity
In the ongoing research by Vitalik Buterin and his team at Cornell University highlights the importance of addressing bribery threats within DAOs. Their work on Proof of Complete Knowledge offers a promising path toward securing DAO governance from external manipulation.
These cryptographic innovations could thus prove instrumental in safeguarding the DAOs’ decentralised decision-making and serving as a reliable marker of their authenticity as they grow and become more common. The research team's work is to prevent external actors from seizing the control of voting rights from the token holders in future DAOs.
However, the research remains in the prototype stage but demonstrates the potential for practical applications in real-world DAO scenarios. As the technology develops, it could become a critical component in protecting the decentralized nature of DAOs, ensuring they remain resistant to bribery and other forms of manipulation.
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