---
title:
    Multisignature
# katex
sidebar: true
...

To do a Schnorr multisignature, you just list all the signatures that
went into it, and the test key is just adding the all the public keys
together. Which gives you pretty fast, though totally non anonymous,
voting, with no need for an elaborate, ingenious, and difficult to
understand key distribution system.

Supposedly [Schnorr multisignature can be done on
ED25519](https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/99/materials/slides-99-cfrg-collective-edwards-curve-digital-signature-algorithm-draft-ford-cfrg-cosi-00-00)
, but I do not see any useful information on how to do it, and Libsodium
fails to mention Schnorr.

However we can easily do it with ristretto25519.

[Bernstein explains how to do Schnorr, and briefly visits Schnorr
multisignature.](./multischnorr-20151012.pdf)

# Notation for elliptic curve cryptography

The group operation where one obtains a third elliptic point from two elliptic
points is represented by addition, $A=B+C$, capitals represent members of the
group, (elliptic points, public keys), lower case represents integers modulo
the order of the group (scalars, private keys), and $h()$ is a hash function
that maps an arbitrary stream of arguments of arbitrary type to an integer
modulo the order of the group.

An upper case letter represents the result of multiplying the base point of
the group by the value represented by the lower case letter.  Thus if\
$B_{base}$ is the base point then $K=kB_{base}\,$

$h(\cdots)$ is hash function that generates an integer modulo the order of the group (hence our use of $h$  rather than $H$) from an arbitrary stream of arguments of arbitrary type.  It is hard to reverse, the only efficient way of reversing it being to guess all possible pre images from which it might be constructed..

# Single Schnorr Signature

Signer secret key is $k$, his public key is $K$

## Sign message with $k$

- Generate an unpredictable $r$ from the message and the secret key. If we ever use the same $r$ with two
different values of $c$, we reveal
our public key, which is why we
make $r$ depend on the same message as we are signing.

  we could use some randomness to generate the konce (key used once, single use secret key), but this would mean that we would sign the same thing twice with two different signatures, which in a much signed item, such as a key or a Zooko id, is undesirable.

- Compute $r = h(k,M)$, a per message secret scalar. Or $r$ can be an
unpredictable secret scalar, randomly generated, but we have to make sure it is truly random and never repeated, which is apt to fail because of computer determinism.
- Compute $R$, a per message elliptic point, a Konce, meaning an
elliptic point that can be used only once, never to be reused because
made public.
- Compute $c = h(R,$ Message$)$
- Compute $s = r+c*k\,$\
Note that:\
$S= R+c*K$

signature is $c, s$

## Verify signature

- Check that $c, s$ are valid scalars, which is trivial.
- Check that $K$, the signing public key, is a valid member of the
prime order group, which is not always trivial.
- Compute $R = S − c*K$\
The reason the signer makes $s$ public rather than $S$, is that to prevent a signature from being faked by someone who does not know the secret underlying $S$.
- Check that $c = h(R,$ Message$)$

# Schnorr multisignature

Obvious problem with multisig – you need proof that each putative signer
is able to produce a singlesig, hence no space advantage for konces, which is the major crypto currency use. but for voting on
the Paxos protocol, major advantage, since the singlesig is apt to be
durable and cached, so the signature signifying approval of the
blockchain is single Schnorr signature connected to a possibly large
collection of individual signing keys. To prove the multisig on a new
block is valid, you need to have and have checked a single sig for each
of the signatories, but it does not have to be a new singlesig. It can
be an old cached singlesig, so you don’t need to download and check
each of the singlesigs with each new block. You only need to check a
single signature, assuming you already have old singlesigs.

So, Schnorr multisig, at least in the simple version, presupposes a
large existing data structure with good cryptographic properties,
presumably a Merkle-patricia tree, listing each party entitled to sign,
the self signed signature of that party, and the voting weight and
voting rights of that party, and the hash at the root of that tree is a
Schnorr multisig.

This, of course, occupies slightly more space than the simple tuple of
signatures, but has the advantage that it does not need to change very
often, and usually only a small part of it needs to change, while the
multisig by itself is relatively small.

But it is not that small. For each possible multisig, you have to list
the keys of all the signers, and then look up their rights in the Merkle
patricia tree, which is OK if the members of the board are hiring the
CEO, but is going to suck mightily if the shareholders are electing the
board.

However, chances are in practice, it will commonly be the case that the
same group votes over and over again, so, if space and verification time
is a concern, you can record previous multisigs and their
verification in the Merkle tree, and record the signatures of the latest
signing as a delta on some past signature, and do the verification as a
delta on some past verification.

Suppose you are doing the Paxos protocol, and every consensus block has
to be signed by one hundred peers, every few minutes. Well, you are
still going to have to verify the single sigs of the peers signing the
group signature, which gives you no savings in time or space over simple
tuple of singlesigs. You are still going to have to verify one hundred
peers. But if it is usually the same clique signing each each time, it
will take you very little time or space to prove that this consensus
hash was signed by the same clique as signed the other hundred consensus
hashes, which you verified a long time ago, and do not need to repeat
the verification. Of course their voting rights might have changed, but
if the cliques do not change much, their voting rights probably don’t
change much, so you don’t have to do full verification every single
time.

If the latest sig is compatible with the current and older voting rights,
the sig should reference the older voting rights Merkle-patricia tree of
voting rights, and the peers should validate it on the basis of the
current voting rights, thus validating that the older voting right
suffices. This could produce a false signature and a fork if the voting
rights radically change, and old voters don’t like the change, but in
such a large scale public event, it will be highly visible and detected.
Each client wallet when talking a client wallet on another fork will
discover that its root is out of date. We implement default wallet
behavior to accept the root with the most recent voting rights list, and
of two roots with the same voting rights list, the root most recently
signed.

## Generate Signature

Kevin and Josephine have private keys $k_{Kevin}$ and $k_{Josephine}$, and public
keys $K_{Kevin}$ and $K_{Josephine}$,
and want to generate a multisig to verify to a verifier that both of them signed

- Kevin generates an unpredictable scalar $r_{Kevin}$ which is never
  twice the same, is random rather than deterministic as in single sig
  (otherwise two multisig signings of the same message will reveal his
  private key, since he cannot predict or control $c$)\
  Josephine similarly computes $r_{Josephine}\,$
- Kevin shares $R_{Kevin}$ with each of the other
signatories, and they with him.
- Each of the signatories computes $R =  R_{Kevin} +R_{Josephine} +\dots$
- Each of the signatories computes $c = h(R,$ Message$)$
- Kevin computes $s_{Kevin}=r_{Kevin} + c*k_{Kevin}$\
  Josephine computes $s_{Josephine}=r_{Josephine} + c*k_{Josephine}$, and
  similarly each of the other signatories.\
  $S_{Kevin} = s_{Kevin}*B_{base} = R_{Kevin} + c*K_{Kevin}^{}$
- Kevin shares $s_{Kevin}$ with each of the other signatories, and they with him
  Each of the signatories computes\
  $s = s_{Kevin} + s_{Josephine} +\dots$\
  (thus Kevin cannot predict or control $s$, thus has to use a random
  rather than deterministic konce)
- signature is $c, s$

## Verify Multsignature

- Check that $c, s$ are valid scalars, which is trivial.
- Check that each of the signing keys is a valid member of the prime
order group, and a singlesig exists for each signing key of the multisig.
- $S=s*B_{base}\,$
- Compute $R = S − c*(K_{Kevin} + K_{Josephine} +\dots )$
- Check that $c = h(R,$ Message$)$, proving that $S = s*B = R + c*(K_{Kevin}+K_{Josephine}+\dots)$

Often the checker does not know nor care whether there are multiple
co-signers, because the co-signers have already generate an assertion that
$(K_{Kevin}+K_{Josephine}+\dots)$ is the public key, and hence does not
have to check the singlesig.

If there are quite a few signers, this should be implemented as
server-client.

Each of the clients submits the signing key and a konce (key used once),
server replies with\
$K=\sum\limits_{client}K_{client}$, the sum of all signing keys\
$R=\sum\limits_{client}R_{client}$, the sum of all konces\
and $c=h(R,$ Message$)$, the value to be signed.\
Each of the clients checks $c$ and returns $s_{client}$
Server replies with\
$s=\sum\limits_{client}s_{client}\,$

Each client checks the signature $c, s$

For a two party signature, this collapses to a simpler algorithm. Client
sends his konce. Server returns $s_{server}$, the sum of all signing  keys,
and the sum of all konces.
Then client computes the signing key, returns it, and the server checks to
see if it works. Should be a three packet handshake.

It is commonly the case that one party is the payee or beneficiary of
the thing being signed, an the other party does not particularly need or
want the signature, other than he needs to know it exists for his
records, and may need to resend the signing secret, accompanied by the
signing key and the identifier of the thing being signed.

In this case, the payee sends the konce (key used once, the single use
secret), and the payee sends the konce, and does not need
the beneficiary’s konce, nor the completed signature,
and treats the transaction as completed, because he has seen the thing
being signed, and signed it. Doing it the other way around adds an extra
point of failure.

For a large number of parties, you are going to have hold the protocol
open for a considerable time.

For a vast number of parties, you are never going to get everyone to
complete the protocol all the way through, so have to use threshold
cryptography, where if everyone gets a enough information, even if they
do not get all of it, they can calculate the signature.

# Threshold Signatures

FROST is an algorithm that produces a regular schnorr signature, and allows
a quite large number of unequal shares. 


A threshold signature has the interesting feature that it is a randomness
beacon. If there is one honest participant party to the signing it generates a
random value unpredictable to all participants

One application:  The participants sign off on assertion that their share is such and such, and
the signature itself controls the random distribution of fractional voting
shares in the next signature as whole shares, so that voting shares, as
nearly as possible, approximate ownership shares.

This is not in fact a useful discussion of Threshold signatures, so much as a
list of links. I don’t entirely trust myself to implement threshold
signatures.

Suredbits describes the [FROST algorithm for Schnorr distributed key generation and signing].
This algorithm is not robust.  If any one of the
participants goes down in the middle you have to start all over, but it is
clean, simple, and easy to understand.

[FROST algorithm for Schnorr distributed key generation and signing]:https://suredbits.com/schnorr-applications-frost/
"Schnorr Applications: FROST"

[FROST with unequal shares]:https://github.com/Trust-Machines/frost

Source code for [FROST with unequal shares] is available on github, implemented for the bitcoin elliptic curve.

Each of the participants acts as the trusted dealer for his own share, hands
out shares in it to everyone else, and the final key is the sum of everyone's
share.

This description is easily the most intelligible description of distributed
key generation and signature generation that I have read, because it is
adapted to the special case of Schnorr signatures, which have the huge
advantage of linearity.  But, not robust.

The practical limit for non robust schemes is about fifty participants.  If
you have a hundred participants it keeps starting over and over again, and
eventually this causes more and more people to drop out in the middle as
they lose patience.

[Practical Large Scale Distributed Key Generation]:
./PracticalLargeScaleDistributedKeyGeneration.pdf

[Revisiting the Distributed Key Generation for Discrete-Log Based Cryptosystems]:
./threshold_shnorr.pdf

[Practical Large Scale Distributed Key Generation] references
[Revisiting the Distributed Key Generation for Discrete-Log Based Cryptosystems]
which references Schnorr signatures.

It is a follow up to the (unscalable and arguably inherently centralized)
[Secure Distributed Key Generation for Discrete-Log Based
Cryptosystems](./SecureDistributedKeyGeneration.pdf)

The basic algorithm is that you generate a distributed key, from which
a subset of the key recipients can generate a Schnorr signature.

[Revisiting the Distributed Key Generation for Discrete-Log Based
Cryptosystems](./threshold_shnorr.pdf) gives reasonably detailed instructions
for implementing threshold Schnorr, without any trusted central authority but
assumes various cryptographic primitives that we do not in fact have, among
them a reliable broadcast channel.

## Reliable Broadcast Channel

A key cryptographic primitive in threshold signatures, and indeed in almost
every group cryptographic protocol, is the reliable broadcast channel – that
any participant can reliably send a message that is available to all
participants.

In actual practice we have unreliable point to point two party communications,
from which we have to construct a broadcast channel.

Practical applications of these cryptographic protocols seem to be relying on
a trusted broadcaster, who is apt to be untrustworthy when there is money,
power, or valuable secrets lying on the table.

Trouble is that in practice, certain messages are likely to be hidden from
certain participants, and other participants will be unaware that they are
hidden, or they will receive a discrepant message and incorrectly believe they
are receiving the same message as others.

In a large group, one can assume that more than half the participants are
honest, so one can construct a broadcast channel using the Paxos protocol.

Every distributed cryptographic protocol needs a secure broadcast
channel, and every blockchain is a secure broadcast channel.

One of the requirements of secure reliable broadcast channel is that _it
 stays up_.  But a secure broadcast channel for a lightning type
transaction is going to be created and shut down.  And if it can be
legitimately shut down, it can be shut down at exactly the wrong moment
for some of the participants and exactly the right time for some  of the
 participants.  Hence  the use of a “trusted” broadcast authority, who
stays up.

We could attain the same effect by a hierarchy of secure reliable broadcast
channels, in which a narrow subchannel involving a narrower set of
participants can be set up on the broader channel, and shutdown, with its
final shutdown signature available in the broader channel, such that someone
who has the right code can find on the durable broadcast channel, the signature he needs.

But interesting protocols are likely to involve small groups for which we want
the transaction to fail if any of the participants are defecting.

For example, the lightning protocol is cryptographically enforced
correspondence banking, and an eternal problem in correspondence banking is
insider check kiting.  A shill sends a check to another shill, so that one
correspondence banker can scam another correspondence banker, so the group
attempting to organize the transaction is going to consist of two shills, one
scammer, one pigeon, and one innocent third party roped in to obscure who is
doing the scamming and who is being scammed, giving a majority of three evil
participants against two good and trusting participants.

By and large, the more money and power that is on the table, the smaller the
group engaging in the cryptographic protocol is apt to be.

We want the transaction to fail in such cases.  Generalizing to all
group cryptographic protocols, we want the broadcast channel to fail and
to be seen to fail in such cases.

The Byzantine Paxos protocol is designed for a large group and is intended to
keep going permanently in the face of the hardware or software failure of some
participants, and Byzantine defection by a small conspiracy of participants.

For a reliable broadcast channel to be reliable, you are relying on it to
stay up, because if it goes down and stays down, its state for transactions
 near the time it went down cannot be clearly defined.

For a reliable broadcast channel to be in a well defined state on shutdown,
it has to have continued broadcasting its final state to anyone interested
for some considerable time after it reached its final state.  So you are
trusting someone to keep it going and available.  In this sense, no group
cryptographic transaction can be entirely trustless.

I intend that the rho blockchain will primarily a notarization system that
just happens to special case notarizing rhocoin transactions.  The notaries
will be a collection of durable broadcast channels, each one typically
maintained by a single host, albeit a notarization will not be evidence usable
on the blockchain until its notary block is Merkle chained by the blockchain.
If the blockchain automatically trusts notary signatures, they will rapidly
cease to be trustworthy.  The chain, not the signature, makes it officially
official.  The notary signature and rowid is merely a promise to make it
official.  The blockchain will treat notaries as untrusted, so that everyone
else can treat them as trusted at low risk.

## scaling

According to [Practical Large Scale Distributed Key Generation](./PracticalLargeScaleDistributedKeyGeneration.pdf) their algorithm is of
order ${[log (n)]}^3$, meaning it should produce a Schnorr signature for
thousands of voters with hundreds of thousands of shares, in a a potentially
decentralized manner, without a trusted dealer, making it useful for digital
corporations, and capable of electing producing a chain of signatures
(shareholders sign the board, board signs the CEO, CEO signs every corporate
officer identity, CEO organizes the election of the board), capable of being
evaluated by everyone interacting with the business over the net.

Obviously the reliable broadcast protocol of such a very large scale key
generation will look more like a regular blockchain, since many entities will
drop out or fail to complete directly.

# [Blind SchnorrSignature.](https://www.math.uni-frankfurt.de/~dmst/teaching/WS2013/Vorlesung/Pointcheval,Stern.pdf)

[See also](https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/877.pdf).

[and](https://suredbits.com/schnorr-applications-blind-signatures/)

Blind Schnorr signatures are vulnerable to the [Wagner attack], which
can be defeated by refusing to do large numbers of blind signatures in
parallel, and/or randomly failing to complete some blind signatures.

[Wagner attack]:https://www.iacr.org/archive/crypto2002/24420288/24420288.pdf

# Regular Elliptic Signature

Signer secret scalar $k$. Signer public point $K=k*B$. $B$ is base point.

Signature is scalar $s$ and point $R$, such that
$S = s*B = h(R,$ Message$)*K+ R$

## Signing

Generate random secret scalar $r$, public point $R=r*B$

calculate public scalar $s = h(R$, Message)*k + r$

Reveal s and R for message.

## [Blind signing using a regular elliptic signature](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e58a/1713858a5b9355a9e18adfe3abfc05de244e.pdf)

# Pairing based cryptography

In pairing based cryptography the computational Diffie--Hellman problem
is believed to be infeasible while the simpler decisional
Diffie--Hellman problem can be easily solved using the pairing function.

In a cryptographic group, given $G$, $xG$, and $yG$ it is hard to find
$xyG$, unless you know $x$ or $y$.

In a pairing based group, given $G$, $xG$, $yG$ and $xyG$ you can
easily *verify* that $xyG$ is correct, even though you are unable to
calculate the correct value.

Pairing based cryptography can do all sorts of really cool things, and I
am not sure how fast it can do them, but we do not in fact have any
obvious need for it.

## Proposed uses for pairing based crypto

We want money payments to operate in private invitation only messaging
and blog groups, without causing the group to be exposed.

We also need pairing based crypto to interface between crypto currency,
and the corporate form, though threshold signatures. So we have a white
face, a grey face, and a black face. The white face is the interface
between crypto cash and to the corporate form that exists both
cryptographically and on government registries, the grey face is the
interface to the corporate form that exists only cryptographically, not
registered with the state (with the result that scams will abound) and
the black face is secret invitation only blogs and messaging groups,
within which it is possible to make secret payments.

These invitation only blogs and messaging groups will exist with and
within open searchable blogs and messaging groups, hidden by the secret
handshake protocol.

The structure will be ultimately rooted in [Zooko’s triangle](names/zookos_triangle.html), but normal
people will most of the time sign in by zero knowledge password
protocol, your identity will be derivative from someone else’s Zooko
based identity.

Useful links on this topic are “XDH assumption”, “pairing based
cryptography”, “Bilinear Diffie-Hellman”, and “gap Diffie—Hellman
(GDH) groups”.

A list of libraries now
[available](https://gist.github.com/artjomb/f2d720010506569d3a39) PBC
looks like the best. MIRACL uses a strong copyleft license. AGPL: all
the software linked against free software (free in GNU/FSF sense) is
also free software and freely available. GNU Public License is the most
famous of such “strong copyleft” FOSS licenses. The GPL copyleft
clause triggers when an application is distributed outside of company
boundaries. And servicing customers from a company server running the
code constitutes distribution.

MIRACL is written in C, and can be used from C, but is designed for C++.
Comes with inline C++ wrappers.

But hell, I like C++. But C++ not going to fly on android. Scala does
not support Visual Studio, and visual studio does not really support
android, though it confidently believes that it does.

Useful threshold signatures requires pairing based cryptography. And
pairing based cryptography also needed for useful implementation of the
secret handshake (green beard, Masonic Lodge) problem. Allegedly good
for zero knowledge password protocol, though I am pretty sure that
problem has been solved without using pairing based cryptography.

Pairing based cryptography is usually described using the notation that
the group operation is multiplication, and the one way function
combining an integer with a member of the group to produce another
member of the group is exponentiation. But pairing based cryptography is
easier to understand if we call the group operation addition, whereupon
we call the application of an integer modulo the order of the group
multiplication, instead of calling it exponentiation.

In pairing based cryptography, the group supports addition (it is
commutative and associative), and *also supports something like multiplication*
(it is also commutative and associative), albeit the result of multiplication
is not a member of the original group, but a member of another group,
the pair group.

That it supports something like multiplication is described as “Bilinear
Diffie-Hellman”, and if you call it “something like multiplication”
people who are experts in the field will conclude you are an idiot.

So, let us, as usual, use the notation that members of the group are capital
letters, and integers modulo the order of the group are lower case
italics. Let us denote members of the pair group, the result of
multiplying members of the original group with each other, with Greek letters.

Which notation allows us to leave out all the academic stuff about $\forall P \in
G$. If it is a regular capital, it stands for any member of $G$, unless
otherwise specified. In proper academic language (apart from the fact
that I am leaving out all the $\forall P \in G$ stuff):

Let G be an cyclic group of prime order written additively and $ϓ$
another cyclic group of the same order written multiplicatively. A pairing is
a map: $e : G × G → ϓ$ , which satisfies the following properties:

- Bilinearity: $\forall a, b, P, Q : e(aP, bQ) = e(P, Q)^{ab}$
(notice that the left hand side of the equals sign is written
additively, and the right hand side written multiplicatively)
- Non-degeneracy: e ≠ 1
- Computability: there exists an efficient algorithm to compute e

Whereupon in this notation:
$B_{base}$, the base point, is widely known, Ann’s private key is $a$, her public key is $A = aB_{base}$

In C++ is is useful to represent both groups additively, allowing the
operation of the addition of any member of either group to another
member of the same group, the multiplication of any member of either
group by an integer, producing another member of the same group, and the
operation e(P,Q), where P and Q are members of the first group, as infix
multiplication producing a member of the second group.

In this notation the magic equality becomes

Bilinearity: $\forall a, b, P, Q :$
$(a*P)*(b*Q) == (a*b)*(P*Q)$

Requiring us, in C++, to create an infix multiplication operator for the
mapping, an infix addition operator for each group, and an infix
multiplication by integer operator for each group.

To sign a document with the secret key $a$, publish $M = $ah($Message$)B$

To test the signature, check that

$A*(h(Message)B_{base})=B_{base}*M$

Which it should because 

$(a*B_{base})*(h($
Message
$)*B_{base}) =B_{base}*(a*h($
Message
$)*B_{base})$ by bilinearity.

The threshold variant of this scheme is called GDH threshold signature
scheme, Gap Diffie Hellman threshold signature scheme.

This scheme is also good for blind signatures, because if you sign an
arbitrary point of the group, which the person asking for the signature
knows is sum of an already signed point of the group, multiplied by a
random secret, plus the thing he actually wants signed, he can then
subtract the two signed quantities to find a third signed quantity,
corresponding to a well formed token, that token unknown to the signer.

## Secret Handshakes

[Paraphrasing](./secret_handshakes.pdf)

We can prove, without revealing, shared knowledge of the master secret of
the secret society, without third parties cluing it, using ordinary
elliptic curve cryptography.

Trouble is that this requires wide sharing of the secret, which is thus unlikely to remain very secret for very long.

The Secret society of evil has a frequently changing secret key
$k_{evil}$ Ann has a secret key $k_{Ann}$ and public key $K_{Ann} =
k_{Ann}B$, Bob has a secret key $k_{Bob}$ and public key $K_{Bob} =
b_{Bob}B$

Let $h(…)$ represent a hash of the serialized arguments of H, which
hash is an integer modulo the order of the group.  Let $H(…) = h(…)B$.

The evil overlord of the evil society of evil issues Ann and Bob a
signed hash of their public keys. For Ann, the signature is
$k_{evil}H($“Ann”, $K_{Ann},$ “evil secret society of evil”$)$, similarly for Bob

The problem is that Ann does not know whether Bob is also a member of
the secret society of evil, and wants to send him a message that is only
 going to be intelligible to him if he secretly has a key signed by the
secret society of evil, but is not going to be recognizable to third
parties as signed by the secret society of evil.

So, they use as part of their shared secret whereby they encrypt
messages, the secret that Ann can calculate:\
$[k_{evil}H($“Ann”,
$K_{Ann},$ “evil secret society of evil”$)]*H($“Bob”, $K_{Bob},$ “evil
secret society of evil”$)$

Bob calculates:\
$H($“Ann”, $K_{Ann},$ “evil secret society of evil”$)
*[k_{evil}H($“Bob”, $K_{Bob},$ “evil secret society of evil”$)]$

Thus proving possession of their evil keys to each other without
revealing them to each other, and without revealing that possession to
someone who does not have the expected evil key.

Overly complicated and excessively clever. In practice, if you have a
secret society, you have a secret chatroom, in which case the routing
metadata on messages going to and from the chatroom are traceable if
they pass through enemy networks.

# IFF

But suppose you want battlespace iff (Identify Friend or Foe).  You want to
send a message directly to an unknown target that will identify as friendly
if the other guy is a friendly, but not necessarily let him know enemy if he
is enemy. If he already knows you are enemy, you don’t want to give him
the means to identify enemy iff from your friends.

We need an IFF ping that can be distibuted to a very large number of people.  Which means that the means for identifying it will leak.  Which means it has to be possible to generate a thousand variants on the ping, so that if it leaks, the leadership hierarchy can identify the leaker, but no one else can.

If a member of a sub subgroup leaks, then the leader of the group should be able to identify the subgroup that leaked, the leader of the subgroup should be able to identify the sub subgroup that leaked, and the leader of the sub sub group should be able to identify the member that leaked.

For large groups, the ping has to mutually identify the two subgroups to
each other, and also supply information the chain of command could use to
identify the individual, but to a random member of a one subgroup, should
only identify the other party's subgroup.

Let us figure out how to do this in a single level hierarchy, one leader, plus regular members.

Suppose the evil overlord frequently signs a fresh secret key of each
member, and a randomized list of the corresponding public keys get
distributed to every member.

Then a member simply does authentication without signing on his secret key, and sends the sequence number of his secret key.  Which is useless information to anyone who does not know the list.

But this method fails to scale to an enormous hierarchical group of groups, because that information is going to leak very fast, and there is no way of
tracing who leaked it.

So we need a ping that the leader can identify as coming from a particular member, but a random member cannot.  But  a random member  _can_  recognize it as coming from _a_ member.

So Bob, who is a member sub-sub-sub-group CAFD, which is a subgroup of sub-sub-group CAF, which is a subgroup of sub-group CA, which is a subgroup of C, wants to know if a mystery target is fellow member of C.

Trouble is, he wants to do so without revealing he is a member of group C
_except_ to a fellow member of group C.  But information that could allow
any member of group C to recognize the ping is going to leak.  So we need a
multi stage ping, where you don't know who you are talking to until both
parties have revealed a fair bit of zero knowledge proofs of knowledge.

We want both parties to reveal information that the leadership hierarchy
could use to identify both parties, but after they have both revealed that
information, it is meaningless to them, though potentially meaningful to the
leadership, they still do not know whether the other is a member of group C,
until they reveal further information.

So if there is a leak that defeats the IFF, the leadership hierarchy can
track that leak.

If everyone can IFF, everyone can leak data that will enable enemy fake IFF, so neither party can be allowed to id the ping until after both sides have received information that would allow a much smaller group, much less likely to leak, to id the ping.