arXiv · 2601.18961
Private Proofs of When and Where
Abstract
Position verification schemes are interactive protocols where entities prove their physical location to others; this enables interactive proofs for statements of the form "I am at a location $L$." Although secure position verification cannot be achieved with classical protocols (even with computational assumptions), they are feasible with quantum protocols. In this paper we introduce the notion of zero-knowledge position verification, which generalizes position verification in two ways: 1. enabling entities to prove more sophisticated statements about their locations at different times (for example, "I was NOT near location $L$ at noon yesterday"). 2. maintaining privacy for any other detail about their true location besides the statement they are proving. We construct zero-knowledge position verification from standard position verification and post-quantum one-way functions. The central tool in our construction is a primitive we call position commitments, which allow entities to privately commit to their physical position in a particular moment, which is then revealed at some later time.
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Uma Girish, Greg Gluch, Shafi Goldwasser, Tal Malkin, Leo Orshansky, Henry Yuen. 2026-01-26. Private Proofs of When and Where. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18961
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