Using smart contract to verify computation on encrypted data

Question

I’m working on a project where all data is stored encrypted on a blockchain. There are some off-chain compute nodes that have the key to decrypt the data and perform some computation and return results. I’d like to design a scheme where one can verify that computation is correct using smart contract. So, I’m thinking to have a smart contract that implements the verification function. Verification function would have two arguments: a key for decryption and the expected result. The function is constant, so private key should not be written to blockchain, hence remain hidden from all. The function returns true or false and signs this result. This function can be called only by the entity that knows the key. In order to implement the above, I need a function for decryption and for signing in Solidity, but I was not able to find any.

Any advice if decryption, signing function exist in Solidity? Any libraries? Any advice on alternative designs for my problem

Answer 1

As per your qus, yes you can do. But unfortunately I couldn't find any encryption libraries in Solidity. In general good encryption/decryption algorithms requires good computational power. That means it requires more gas. I feel this is cost effective.

Let me summarise with code:

contract Mail{
    mapping(address=>string) loginInfo;
    function validate(bytes key, bytes expectedResult) public constant returns(bool){
         //Check given saved data  
          //To do check given data and decrypted data is same or not?
       return true;
    }

} 

Instead of doing this, you can follow another way:

1. Upload data to IPFS
2. Save IPFS/Swarm address and hash of encrypted data in your contract.
3. When you want to verify then get the Swarm/IPFS address and hash value from contract.
4. Use ifps/swarm api/sdks to getting the data.
5. Hash of step 4 with contract hash value if both are same then follow step6
6. Use any client library to decrypt data
7. Compare your data with decrypted data.

In above method, your original data will not go to network.

Eg: contract,

contract Mail{
    struct MailInfo{
        bytes ipfs;
        bytes enc_hash;
    } 
    mapping(address=>MailInfo) loginInfo;
    function getIPFS(address userId) public constant returns(bytes,bytes){
       return (loginInfo[userId].ipfs,loginInfo[userId].enc_hash);
    }

}