Using Probabilistic I/O Automata to Analyze an Oblivious Transfer Protocol

We demonstrate how to carry out cryptographic security analysis of distributed protocols within the Probabilistic I/O Automata framework of Lynch, Segala, and Vaandrager. This framework provides tools for arguing rigorously about the concurrency and scheduling aspects of protocols, and about protocols presented at different levels of abstraction. Consequently, it can help in making cryptographic analysis more precise and less susceptible to errors. We concentrate on a relatively simple two-party Oblivious Transfer protocol, in the presence of a semi-honest adversary (essentially, an eavesdropper). For the underlying cryptographic notion of security, we use a version of Canetti’s Universally Composable security. In spite of the relative simplicity of the example, the exercise is quite nontrivial. It requires taking many fundamental issues into account, including nondeterministic behavior, scheduling, resource-bounded computation, and computational hardness assumptions for cryptographic primitives.