arXiv subjects

Prabhanjan Ananth

Publications and source records attributed to Prabhanjan Ananth.

34 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Pseudorandom (Function-Like) Quantum State Generators: New Definitions and Applications

Pseudorandom quantum states (PRS) are efficiently constructible states that are computationally indistinguishable from being Haar-random, and have recently found cryptographic applications. We explore new definitions, new properties and applications of pseudorandom states, and present the following contributions: 1. New Definitions: We study variants of pseudorandom function-like state (PRFS) generators, introduced by Ananth, Qian, and Yuen (CRYPTO'22), where the pseudorandomness property holds even when the generator can be queried adaptively or in superposition. We show feasibility of these variants assuming the existence of post-quantum one-way functions. 2. Classical Communication: We show that PRS generators with logarithmic output length imply commitment and encryption schemes with classical communication. Previous constructions of such schemes from PRS generators required quantum communication. 3. Simplified Proof: We give a simpler proof of the Brakerski--Shmueli (TCC'19) result that polynomially-many copies of uniform superposition states with random binary phases are indistinguishable from Haar-random states. 4. Necessity of Computational Assumptions: We also show that a secure PRS with output length logarithmic, or larger, in the key length necessarily requires computational assumptions.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Cloning Games: A General Framework for Unclonable Primitives

The powerful no-cloning principle of quantum mechanics can be leveraged to achieve interesting primitives, referred to as unclonable primitives, that are impossible to achieve classically. In the past few years, we have witnessed a surge of new unclonable primitives. While prior works have mainly focused on establishing feasibility results, another equally important direction, that of understanding the relationship between different unclonable primitives is still in its nascent stages. Moving forward, we need a more systematic study of unclonable primitives. To this end, we introduce a new framework called cloning games. This framework captures many fundamental unclonable primitives such as quantum money, copy-protection, unclonable encryption, single-decryptor encryption, and many more. By reasoning about different types of cloning games, we obtain many interesting implications to unclonable cryptography, including the following: 1. We obtain the first construction of information-theoretically secure single-decryptor encryption in the one-time setting. 2. We construct unclonable encryption in the quantum random oracle model based on BB84 states, improving upon the previous work, which used coset states. Our work also provides a simpler security proof for the previous work. 3. We construct copy-protection for single-bit point functions in the quantum random oracle model based on BB84 states, improving upon the previous work, which used coset states, and additionally, providing a simpler proof. 4. We establish a relationship between different challenge distributions of copy-protection schemes and single-decryptor encryption schemes. 5. Finally, we present a new construction of one-time encryption with certified deletion.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

On the (Im)plausibility of Public-Key Quantum Money from Collision-Resistant Hash Functions

Public-key quantum money is a cryptographic proposal for using highly entangled quantum states as currency that is publicly verifiable yet resistant to counterfeiting due to the laws of physics. Despite significant interest, constructing provably-secure public-key quantum money schemes based on standard cryptographic assumptions has remained an elusive goal. Even proposing plausibly-secure candidate schemes has been a challenge. These difficulties call for a deeper and systematic study of the structure of public-key quantum money schemes and the assumptions they can be based on. Motivated by this, we present the first black-box separation of quantum money and cryptographic primitives. Specifically, we show that collision-resistant hash functions cannot be used as a black-box to construct public-key quantum money schemes where the banknote verification makes classical queries to the hash function. Our result involves a novel combination of state synthesis techniques from quantum complexity theory and simulation techniques, including Zhandry's compressed oracle technique.

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arXiv2022

Post-Quantum Zero-Knowledge with Space-Bounded Simulation

The traditional definition of quantum zero-knowledge stipulates that the knowledge gained by any quantum polynomial-time verifier in an interactive protocol can be simulated by a quantum polynomial-time algorithm. One drawback of this definition is that it allows the simulator to consume significantly more computational resources than the verifier. We argue that this drawback renders the existing notion of quantum zero-knowledge not viable for certain settings, especially when dealing with near-term quantum devices. In this work, we initiate a fine-grained notion of post-quantum zero-knowledge that is more compatible with near-term quantum devices. We introduce the notion of $(s,f)$ space-bounded quantum zero-knowledge. In this new notion, we require that an $s$-qubit malicious verifier can be simulated by a quantum polynomial-time algorithm that uses at most $f(s)$-qubits, for some function $f(\cdot)$, and no restriction on the amount of the classical memory consumed by either the verifier or the simulator. We explore this notion and establish both positive and negative results: - For verifiers with logarithmic quantum space $s$ and (arbitrary) polynomial classical space, we show that $(s,f)$-space-bounded QZK, for $f(s)=2s$, can be achieved based on the existence of post-quantum one-way functions. Moreover, our protocol runs in constant rounds. - For verifiers with super-logarithmic quantum space $s$, assuming the existence of post-quantum secure one-way functions, we show that $(s,f)$-space-bounded QZK protocols, with fully black-box simulation (classical analogue of black-box simulation) can only be achieved for languages in BQP.

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arXiv2022

A Note on Copy-Protection from Random Oracles

Quantum copy-protection, introduced by Aaronson (CCC'09), uses the no-cloning principle of quantum mechanics to protect software from being illegally distributed. Constructing copy-protection has been an important problem in quantum cryptography. Since copy-protection is shown to be impossible to achieve in the plain model, we investigate the question of constructing copy-protection for arbitrary classes of unlearnable functions in the random oracle model. We present an impossibility result that rules out a class of copy-protection schemes in the random oracle model assuming the existence of quantum fully homomorphic encryption and quantum hardness of learning with errors. En route, we prove the impossibility of approximately correct copy-protection in the plain model.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2022

On the Feasibility of Unclonable Encryption, and More

Unclonable encryption, first introduced by Broadbent and Lord (TQC'20), is a one-time encryption scheme with the following security guarantee: any non-local adversary (A, B, C) cannot simultaneously distinguish encryptions of two equal length messages. This notion is termed as unclonable indistinguishability. Prior works focused on achieving a weaker notion of unclonable encryption, where we required that any non-local adversary (A, B, C) cannot simultaneously recover the entire message m. Seemingly innocuous, understanding the feasibility of encryption schemes satisfying unclonable indistinguishability (even for 1-bit messages) has remained elusive. We make progress towards establishing the feasibility of unclonable encryption. - We show that encryption schemes satisfying unclonable indistinguishability exist unconditionally in the quantum random oracle model. - Towards understanding the necessity of oracles, we present a negative result stipulating that a large class of encryption schemes cannot satisfy unclonable indistinguishability. - Finally, we also establish the feasibility of another closely related primitive: copy-protection for single-bit output point functions. Prior works only established the feasibility of copy-protection for multi-bit output point functions or they achieved constant security error for single-bit output point functions.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2022

Cryptography from Pseudorandom Quantum States

Pseudorandom states, introduced by Ji, Liu and Song (Crypto'18), are efficiently-computable quantum states that are computationally indistinguishable from Haar-random states. One-way functions imply the existence of pseudorandom states, but Kretschmer (TQC'20) recently constructed an oracle relative to which there are no one-way functions but pseudorandom states still exist. Motivated by this, we study the intriguing possibility of basing interesting cryptographic tasks on pseudorandom states. We construct, assuming the existence of pseudorandom state generators that map a $λ$-bit seed to a $ω(\logλ)$-qubit state, (a) statistically binding and computationally hiding commitments and (b) pseudo one-time encryption schemes. A consequence of (a) is that pseudorandom states are sufficient to construct maliciously secure multiparty computation protocols in the dishonest majority setting. Our constructions are derived via a new notion called pseudorandom function-like states (PRFS), a generalization of pseudorandom states that parallels the classical notion of pseudorandom functions. Beyond the above two applications, we believe our notion can effectively replace pseudorandom functions in many other cryptographic applications.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Unclonable Encryption, Revisited

Unclonable encryption, introduced by Broadbent and Lord (TQC'20), is an encryption scheme with the following attractive feature: given a ciphertext, an adversary cannot create two ciphertexts both of which decrypt to the same message as the original ciphertext. We revisit this notion and show the following: - Reusability: The constructions proposed by Broadbent and Lord have the disadvantage that they either guarantee one-time security (that is, the encryption key can only be used once to encrypt the message) in the plain model or they guaranteed security in the random oracle model. We construct unclonable encryption schemes with semantic security. We present two constructions (for public-key and private-key settings) from minimal cryptographic assumptions. - Lower Bound and Generalized Construction: We revisit the information-theoretic one-time secure construction of Broadbent and Lord. The success probability of the adversary in their construction was guaranteed to be $0.85^n$, where $n$ is the length of the message. It was interesting to understand whether the ideal success probability of (negligibly close to) $0.5^n$ was unattainable. We generalize their construction to be based on a broader class of monogamy of entanglement games. We demonstrate a simple cloning attack that succeeds with probability $0.71^n$ against a class of schemes including that of Broadbent and Lord. We also present a $0.75^n$ cloning attack exclusively against their scheme. - Implication to Copy-Protection: We show that unclonable encryption, satisfying a stronger property, called unclonable-indistinguishability (defined by Broadbent and Lord), implies copy-protection for a simple class of unlearnable functions. While we currently don't have encryption schemes satisfying this stronger property, this implication demonstrates a new path to construct copy-protection.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2021

On the Concurrent Composition of Quantum Zero-Knowledge

We study the notion of zero-knowledge secure against quantum polynomial-time verifiers (referred to as quantum zero-knowledge) in the concurrent composition setting. Despite being extensively studied in the classical setting, concurrent composition in the quantum setting has hardly been studied. We initiate a formal study of concurrent quantum zero-knowledge. Our results are as follows: -Bounded Concurrent QZK for NP and QMA: Assuming post-quantum one-way functions, there exists a quantum zero-knowledge proof system for NP in the bounded concurrent setting. In this setting, we fix a priori the number of verifiers that can simultaneously interact with the prover. Under the same assumption, we also show that there exists a quantum zero-knowledge proof system for QMA in the bounded concurrency setting. -Quantum Proofs of Knowledge: Assuming quantum hardness of learning with errors (QLWE), there exists a bounded concurrent zero-knowledge proof system for NP satisfying quantum proof of knowledge property. Our extraction mechanism simultaneously allows for extraction probability to be negligibly close to acceptance probability (extractability) and also ensures that the prover's state after extraction is statistically close to the prover's state after interacting with the verifier (simulatability). The seminal work of [Unruh EUROCRYPT'12], and all its followups, satisfied a weaker version of extractability property and moreover, did not achieve simulatability. Our result yields a proof of quantum knowledge system for QMA with better parameters than prior works.

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arXiv2020

Secure Software Leasing

Formulating cryptographic definitions to protect against software piracy is an important research direction that has not received much attention. Since natural definitions using classical cryptography are impossible to achieve (as classical programs can always be copied), this directs us towards using techniques from quantum computing. The seminal work of Aaronson [CCC'09] introduced the notion of quantum copy-protection precisely to address the problem of software anti-piracy. However, despite being one of the most important problems in quantum cryptography, there are no provably secure solutions of quantum copy-protection known for any class of functions. We formulate an alternative definition for tackling software piracy, called secure software leasing (SSL). While weaker than quantum copy-protection, SSL is still meaningful and has interesting applications in software anti-piracy. We present a construction of SSL for a subclass of evasive circuits (that includes natural implementations of point functions, conjunctions with wild cards, and affine testers) based on concrete cryptographic assumptions. Our construction is the first provably secure solution, based on concrete cryptographic assumptions, for software anti-piracy. To complement our positive result, we show, based on cryptographic assumptions, that there is a class of quantum unlearnable functions for which SSL does not exist. In particular, our impossibility result also rules out quantum copy-protection [Aaronson CCC'09] for an arbitrary class of quantum unlearnable functions; resolving an important open problem on the possibility of constructing copy-protection for arbitrary quantum unlearnable circuits.

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arXiv2020

Secure Quantum Extraction Protocols

Knowledge extraction, typically studied in the classical setting, is at the heart of several cryptographic protocols. We introduce the notion of secure quantum extraction protocols. A secure quantum extraction protocol for an NP relation $\mathcal{R}$ is a classical interactive protocol between a sender and a receiver, where the sender gets the instance $z$ and a witness $w$, while the receiver only gets the instance $z$. For any efficient quantum adversarial sender (who follows the protocol but can choose its own randomness), there exists a quantum extractor that can extract a witness $w'$ such that $(z,w') \in \mathcal{R}$ while a malicious receiver should not be able to output any valid witness. We study and construct two types of secure quantum extraction protocols. (1) Quantum extraction protocols secure against quantum malicious receivers based on quantum fully homomorphic encryption satisfying some mild properties and quantum hardness of learning with errors. In this construction, we introduce a non black box technique in the quantum setting. All previous extraction techniques in the quantum setting were solely based on quantum rewinding. (2) Quantum extraction protocols secure against classical malicious receivers based on quantum hardness of learning with errors. As an application, based on the quantum hardness of learning with errors, we present a construction of constant round quantum zero-knowledge argument systems for NP that guarantee security even against quantum malicious verifiers; however, our soundness only holds against classical probabilistic polynomial time adversaries. Prior to our work, such protocols were known based, additionally, on the assumptions of decisional Diffie-Hellman (or other cryptographic assumptions that do not hold against polynomial time quantum algorithms).

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Accelerating 2PC-based ML with Limited Trusted Hardware

This paper describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of Otak, a system that allows two non-colluding cloud providers to run machine learning (ML) inference without knowing the inputs to inference. Prior work for this problem mostly relies on advanced cryptography such as two-party secure computation (2PC) protocols that provide rigorous guarantees but suffer from high resource overhead. Otak improves efficiency via a new 2PC protocol that (i) tailors recent primitives such as function and homomorphic secret sharing to ML inference, and (ii) uses trusted hardware in a limited capacity to bootstrap the protocol. At the same time, Otak reduces trust assumptions on trusted hardware by running a small code inside the hardware, restricting its use to a preprocessing step, and distributing trust over heterogeneous trusted hardware platforms from different vendors. An implementation and evaluation of Otak demonstrates that its CPU and network overhead converted to a dollar amount is 5.4$-$385$\times$ lower than state-of-the-art 2PC-based works. Besides, Otak's trusted computing base (code inside trusted hardware) is only 1,300 lines of code, which is 14.6$-$29.2$\times$ lower than the code-size in prior trusted hardware-based works.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2011

Hardness and Parameterized Algorithms on Rainbow Connectivity problem

A path in an edge colored graph is said to be a rainbow path if no two edges on the path have the same color. An edge colored graph is (strongly) rainbow connected if there exists a (geodesic) rainbow path between every pair of vertices. The (strong) rainbow connectivity of a graph G, denoted by (src(G), respectively) rc(G) is the smallest number of colors required to edge color the graph such that G is (strongly) rainbow connected. In this paper we study the rainbow connectivity problem and the strong rainbow connectivity problem from a computational point of view. Our main results can be summarised as below: 1) For every fixed k >= 3, it is NP-Complete to decide whether src(G) <= k even when the graph G is bipartite. 2) For every fixed odd k >= 3, it is NP-Complete to decide whether rc(G) <= k. This resolves one of the open problems posed by Chakraborty et al. (J. Comb. Opt., 2011) where they prove the hardness for the even case. 3) The following problem is fixed parameter tractable: Given a graph G, determine the maximum number of pairs of vertices that can be rainbow connected using two colors. 4) For a directed graph G, it is NP-Complete to decide whether rc(G) <= 2.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2011

An Algebraic Characterization of Rainbow Connectivity

The use of algebraic techniques to solve combinatorial problems is studied in this paper. We formulate the rainbow connectivity problem as a system of polynomial equations. We first consider the case of two colors for which the problem is known to be hard and we then extend the approach to the general case. We also give a formulation of the rainbow connectivity problem as an ideal membership problem.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2011

On Gröbner Basis Detection for Zero-dimensional Ideals

The Gröbner basis detection (GBD) is defined as follows: Given a set of polynomials, decide whether there exists -and if "yes" find- a term order such that the set of polynomials is a Gröbner basis. This problem was shown to be NP-hard by Sturmfels and Wiegelmann. We show that GBD when studied in the context of zero dimensional ideals is also NP-hard. An algorithm to solve GBD for zero dimensional ideals is also proposed which runs in polynomial time if the number of indeterminates is a constant.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2011

New Hardness Results in Rainbow Connectivity

cs.CC↗