Printing Protocol: Physical ZKPs for Decomposition Puzzles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a physical zero-knowledge proof protocol using cards, enabling verifiers to confirm solutions to decomposition puzzles like Five Cells and Meadows without revealing the solutions.

Contribution

It presents a novel card-based printing protocol for physical zero-knowledge proofs applicable to decomposition puzzles, expanding the toolkit for privacy-preserving verification methods.

Findings

Developed a generic card-based printing protocol for physical ZKPs.

Applied the protocol to create ZKPs for Five Cells and Meadows puzzles.

Enabled solution verification without solution disclosure.

Abstract

Decomposition puzzles are pencil-and-paper logic puzzles that involve partitioning a rectangular grid into several regions to satisfy certain rules. In this paper, we construct a generic card-based protocol called printing protocol, which can be used to physically verify solutions of decompositon puzzles. We apply the printing protocol to develop card-based zero-knowledge proof protocols for two such puzzles: Five Cells and Meadows. These protocols allow a prover to physically show that he/she knows solutions of the puzzles without revealing them.