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Trellis Overview

Trellis is a mix network research design with unique features including Boomerang Encryption, On-Demand Blame and Recovery, and Anonymous Routing Tokens. 0KN's research and development trajectory includes study, evaluation, and integration of vialble trellis design as components within 0KN's modular mix-net framework.

Trellis Research Paper (NDSS 2023):
Fast and Scalable Metadata Private Anonymous Broadcast

  • Targeted Distribution: A bonded-stake ratio will be identified based on the number of desired servers in the network to encourage scaling and decentralization (ideally above 500).
  • Dynamic Inflation: Inflation will dynamically adjust based on the moving change rate tied to an optimal number of servers in the network. If the actual % bonded is below the target, the inflation rate should increase to encourage more staking--servers. Conversely, if the % bonded is above the target, the inflation rate should decrease to discourage excessive inflation.

  • The servers are organized into a network of L layers and users’ messages are routed by servers from one layer to the next.
  • The network is organized in two stages. A one-time path establishment stage followed by a repeated message broadcasting stage.
  • The mix-net is bookended by anytrust groups to prevent denial-of-service attacks at the entry and exit points. (anytrust groups are a group of randomly selected servers from the network)
  • In both stages, the network resolves failures and attacks by malicious users and servers through on-demand blame protocols.