Unconditional Proofs-of-Work and Other Possibilities of Thermodynamic Cryptography

Xavier Coiteux-Roy; Stefan Wolf

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arXiv · 2210.13278

Unconditional Proofs-of-Work and Other Possibilities of Thermodynamic Cryptography

Xavier Coiteux-Roy·Stefan Wolf

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Abstract

In line with advances in recent years about realizing cryptographic functionalities in an information-theoretically secure way from physical phenomena and laws, we propose here to obtain useful tasks from the sole assumption of limited free energy. Specifically, based on that assumption -- resulting in a setting loosely related to Maurer's bounded-storage model -- we derive protocols for unconditional proofs-of-thermodynamical-work, secret sharing of free energy, unforgeable money, and proofs-of-position. While our schemes can be considered classical and not quantum per se, they are resistant against both classes of adversaries.

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Xavier Coiteux-Roy, Stefan Wolf. 2022-10-24. Unconditional Proofs-of-Work and Other Possibilities of Thermodynamic Cryptography. https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.13278

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