A Privacy Protocol Using Ephemeral Intermediaries and a Rank-Deficient Matrix Power Function (RDMPF)

TL;DR

This paper introduces a privacy-preserving transfer protocol for the Internet Computer that uses ephemeral intermediaries and a novel RDMPF-based encapsulation to ensure confidentiality, anonymity, and security.

Contribution

It presents a new privacy protocol utilizing ephemeral intermediaries and a rank-deficient matrix power function for secure, anonymous transfers on the Internet Computer.

Findings

Protocol has been implemented on ICP as ICPP.

Extensive testing confirms security and privacy features.

Provides a broad reference for privacy protocols on ICP.

Abstract

This paper presents a private transfer architecture for the Internet Computer (ICP) that decouples deposit and retrieval through two short-lived intermediaries, with sealed storage and attested teardown by an ephemeral witness. The protocol uses a non-interactive RDMPF-based encapsulation to derive per-transfer transport keys. A public notice hint is computed from the capsule to enable discovery without fingerprinting the recipient's key. Retrieval is authorized by a short proof of decapsulation that reveals no identities. All transaction intermediaries are ephemeral and issue certified destruction intents and proofs, allowing a noticeboard to publish auditable finalization records. The design provides sender identity privacy with respect to the recipient, content confidentiality against intermediaries, forward secrecy for transport keys after staged destruction, verifiable liveness and finality. We formalize the basic interfaces, provide the security arguments for encapsulation correctness, hint privacy, authorization soundness and timeout reclaim. In terms of implementation, it has been recently brought into production on the ICP under the name ICPP. It has been subject to exhaustive testing and incorporates a few enhancements, focusing on the operational possibilities offered by ICP's technology. This work hence serves as a broad reference for the protocol now publicly accessible.