Quick start
This library makes it possible to execute homomorphic operations over encrypted data, where the data are either Booleans, short integers (named shortint in the rest of this documentation), or integers up to 256 bits. It allows you to execute a circuit on an untrusted server because both circuit inputs and outputs are kept private. Data are indeed encrypted on the client side, before being sent to the server. On the server side, every computation is performed on ciphertexts.
The server, however, has to know the circuit to be evaluated. At the end of the computation, the server returns the encryption of the result to the user. Then the user can decrypt it with the secret key
.
General method to write an homomorphic circuit program
The overall process to write an homomorphic program is the same for all types. The basic steps for using the TFHE-rs library are the following:
Choose a data type (Boolean, shortint, integer)
Import the library
Create client and server keys
Encrypt data with the client key
Compute over encrypted data using the server key
Decrypt data with the client key
API levels.
This library has different modules, with different levels of abstraction.
There is the core_crypto module, which is the lowest level API with the primitive functions and types of the TFHE scheme.
Above the core_crypto module, there are the Boolean, shortint, and integer modules, which contain easy to use APIs enabling evaluation of Boolean, short integer, and integer circuits.
Finally, there is the high-level module built on top of the Boolean, shortint, integer modules. This module is meant to abstract cryptographic complexities: no cryptographical knowledge is required to start developing an FHE application. Another benefit of the high-level module is the drastically simplified development process compared to lower level modules.
high-level API
TFHE-rs exposes a high-level API by default that includes datatypes that try to match Rust's native types by having overloaded operators (+, -, ...).
Here is an example of how the high-level API is used:
Use the --release
flag to run this example (eg: cargo run --release
)
Boolean example
Here is an example of how the library can be used to evaluate a Boolean circuit:
Use the --release
flag to run this example (eg: cargo run --release
)
shortint example
Here is a full example using shortint:
Use the --release
flag to run this example (eg: cargo run --release
)
integer example
Use the --release
flag to run this example (eg: cargo run --release
)
The library is simple to use and can evaluate homomorphic circuits of arbitrary length. The description of the algorithms can be found in the TFHE paper (also available as ePrint 2018/421).
Last updated