Design of blockchain based zero-knowledge proof of location system

Abstract

With the development of precise positioning technology, a growing number of location-based services (LBS) emerge. For example, visit a specific place to get the corresponding reward. This also leads to location fraud by illegal users in order to gain benefits. Thus, it is necessary to verify location certificates provided by users. However, present proof of location systems are deficient in verifying users’ location certificates while protecting users’ privacy. Users do not flexibly control their location certificates either. Based on blockchain, a kind of distributed proof of location system architecture was proposed and based on the proposed system architecture, a kind of proof of location protocol with zero-knowledge proof was proposed further. With the proposed architecture and the protocol, the proposed proof of location system allows users to freely select disclosed certificate parameters and positional accuracy according to their needs so that hierarchical location privacy protection was achieved.

Keywords

• blockchain
• zero-knowledge proof
• privacy protection
• proof of location system