Probabilistically Checkable Proofs of Proximity with Zero-Knowledge

A probabilistically Checkable Proof (PCP) allows a randomized verifier, with oracle access to a purported proof, to probabilistically verify an input statement of the form “x ∈ L” by querying only few bits of the proof. A PCP of proximity (PCPP) has the additional feature of allowing the verifier to query only few bits of the input x, where if the input is accepted then the verifier is guaranteed that (with high probability) the input is close to some x′ ∈ L. Motivated by their usefulness for sublinear-communication cryptography, we initiate the study of a natural zero-knowledge variant of PCPP (ZKPCPP), where the view of any verifier making a bounded number of queries can be efficiently simulated by making the same number of queries to the input oracle alone. This new notion provides a useful extension of the standard notion of zero-knowledge PCPs. We obtain two