Post-Quantum Privacy-Preserving Provable Data Possession Scheme Based on Smart Contracts

Provable data possession (PDP) is a crucial means of protecting the integrity of data in the domain of cloud storage. In the post-quantum era, the PDP scheme that uses lattices relies too heavily on the third-party auditor (TPA), which is not entirely trustworthy and is easily affected by a single point of failure. Moreover, the scheme often leads to the leakage of private user data while attempting to satisfy the demand for public verification. In response to the above problems, this paper designs a protocol for post-quantum privacy-preserving PDP and uses it to develop a scheme based on smart contracts. The proposed scheme has the characteristics of being post quantum and can satisfy the demand for public verification while preserving user privacy. The property of noninteraction of the protocol can reduce transaction fees incurred owing to the frequent operation of the blockchain, and the smart contract with a deposit mechanism can ensure fair payments to all parties. The results of a theoretical analysis and experiments show that the proposed scheme is highly secure and efficient. © 2023 Zhengwen Li et al.