CRII: SaTC: Towards a Secure and Efficient Ethereum P2P Network with Client Diversity

以太坊是一个软件平台，用于分散支付（类似于比特币）以及金融（“智能”）合同和应用程序。 自成立以来，以太坊越来越多地被金融、健康和游戏等各种应用所采用。以太坊通过点对点（P2P）网络实现区块链技术，每个参与节点可以运行不同的客户端和传播模型，以提高其安全性和效率。这项工作解决了以太坊P2P网络的以下挑战：如何了解所有客户端是否具有兼容的通信协议并保持一致的行为;以及如何防止邻居的私有信息泄露给恶意节点。为了应对这些挑战，这项工作将开发方法来系统地检测以太坊客户端中不兼容的通信协议和不一致的行为，并设计一种新的方法来保护节点隐私并提高效率。基于这项研究，将开发两门新课程，一门课程涵盖密码学基础及其在区块链中的应用，另一门课程是关于区块链安全基础的选修研究生课程。这项工作包括三项研究任务。任务1是开发一个自动化测试框架，以发现以太坊客户端中实现的不兼容通信协议，这些协议会导致通信失败。任务2是开发一个差分模糊框架，以检测以太坊客户端中可能导致拒绝服务攻击的不一致传播行为。任务3是设计一个动态的传播模型，可以根据网络条件和邻居状态选择最佳的传播方法，以减轻邻居隐私泄露问题，提高传播效率。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Ethereum is a software platform used for decentralized payments (similar to bitcoin) and also for financial ("smart") contracts and applications. Since its inception, Ethereum has been increasingly adopted by various diverse applications such as finance, health, and gaming. Ethereum implements blockchain technology with a peer-to-peer (P2P) network where each participating node may run different clients and propagation models to enhance its security and efficiency. This effort addresses the following Ethereum P2P network challenges: how to understand whether all clients have compatible communication protocols and behave consistently; and how to prevent the leakage of neighbors' private information to a malicious node. To address these challenges, this effort will develop methods to systematically detect incompatible communication protocols and inconsistent behaviors in Ethereum clients, and design a new approach to preserve node privacy and improve efficiency. Two new courses will be developed based on this research, a course covering the foundations of cryptography and its applications in blockchains, and an elective graduate course on blockchain security foundations.This effort includes three research tasks. Task 1 is to develop an automated testing framework to discover incompatible communication protocols implemented in Ethereum clients that would cause communication failures. Task 2 is to develop a differential fuzzing framework to detect inconsistent propagation behaviors in Ethereum clients that could lead to Denial-of-Service attacks. Task 3 is to design a dynamic propagation model that can select the best propagation method based on the network conditions and neighbor status to mitigate the neighbor privacy leakage problem and improve propagation efficiency.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.