## CryptoDB

### Prabhanjan Ananth

#### Publications

Year
Venue
Title
2022
CRYPTO
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 $\lambda$-bit seed to a $\omega(\log\lambda)$-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.
2022
CRYPTO
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.
2021
EUROCRYPT
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 {\em any} class of functions. We formulate an alternative definition for tackling software piracy, called quantum secure software leasing (QSSL). While weaker than quantum copy-protection, QSSL is still meaningful and has interesting applications in software anti-piracy. We present a construction of QSSL 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 QSSL 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.
2021
EUROCRYPT
It is well known that several cryptographic primitives cannot be achieved without a common reference string (CRS). Those include, for instance, non-interactive zero-knowledge for NP, or malicious secure computation in fewer than four rounds. The security of those primitives heavily rely upon on the assumption that the trusted authority, who generates the CRS, does not misuse the randomness used in the CRS generation. However, we argue that there is no such thing as an unconditionally trusted authority and every authority must be held accountable for any trust to be well-founded. Indeed, a malicious authority can, for instance, recover private inputs of honest parties given transcripts of the protocols executed with respect to the CRS it has generated. While eliminating trust in the trusted authority may not be entirely feasible, can we at least move towards achieving some notion of accountability? We propose a new notion in which, if the CRS authority releases the private inputs of protocol executions to others, we can then provide a publicly-verifiable proof that certifies that the authority misbehaved. We study the feasibility of this notion in the context of non-interactive zero knowledge and two-round secure two-party computation.
2021
EUROCRYPT
We consider the problem of round-optimal *unbounded MPC*: in the first round, parties publish a message that depends only on their input. In the second round, any subset of parties can jointly and securely compute any function $f$ over their inputs in a single round of broadcast. We do not impose any a priori bound on the number of parties nor on the size of the functions that can be computed. Our main result is a semi-honest two-round protocol for unbounded MPC in the plain model from the hardness of the standard learning with errors (LWE) problem. Prior work in the same setting assumes the hardness of problems over bilinear maps. Thus, our protocol is the first example of unbounded MPC that is post-quantum secure. The central ingredient of our protocol is a new scheme of attribute-based secure function evaluation (AB-SFE) with *public decryption*. Our construction combines techniques from the realm of homomorphic commitments with delegation of lattice basis. We believe that such a scheme may find further applications in the future.
2021
CRYPTO
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. \par 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). Even in the standalone setting, 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 {\em quantum knowledge} system for QMA with better parameters than prior works.
2021
TCC
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 from minimal cryptographic assumptions: (i) a private-key unclonable encryption scheme assuming post-quantum one-way functions and, (ii) a public-key unclonable encryption scheme assuming a post-quantum public-key encryption scheme. -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 (while their construction was based on BB84 game). 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.
2020
TCC
\noindent Knowledge extraction, typically studied in the classical setting, is at the heart of several cryptographic protocols. The prospect of quantum computers forces us to revisit the concept of knowledge extraction in the presence of quantum adversaries. \par We introduce the notion of secure quantum extraction protocols. A secure quantum extraction protocol for an NP relation $\rel$ is a classical interactive protocol between a sender and a receiver, where the sender gets as input the instance $\inst$ and witness $\witness$ while the receiver only gets the instance $\inst$ as input. There are two properties associated with a secure quantum extraction protocol: (a) {\em Extractability}: for any efficient quantum polynomial-time (QPT) adversarial sender, there exists a QPT extractor that can extract a witness $\witness'$ such that $(\inst,\witness') \in \rel$ and, (b) {\em Zero-Knowledge}: a malicious receiver, interacting with the sender, should not be able to learn any information about $\witness$. \par We study and construct two flavors of secure quantum extraction protocols. \begin{itemize} \item {\bf Security against QPT malicious receivers}: First we consider the setting when the malicious receiver is a QPT adversary. In this setting, we construct a secure quantum extraction protocol for NP assuming the existence of quantum fully homomorphic encryption satisfying some mild properties (already satisfied by existing constructions [Mahadev, FOCS'18, Brakerski CRYPTO'18]) and quantum hardness of learning with errors. The novelty of our construction is a new non-black-box technique in the quantum setting. All previous extraction techniques in the quantum setting were solely based on quantum rewinding. \item {\bf Security against classical PPT malicious receivers}: We also consider the setting when the malicious receiver is a classical probabilistic polynomial time (PPT) adversary. In this setting, we construct a secure quantum extraction protocol for NP solely based on the quantum hardness of learning with errors. Furthermore, our construction satisfies {\em quantum-lasting security}: a malicious receiver cannot later, long after the protocol has been executed, use a quantum computer to extract a valid witness from the transcript of the protocol. \end{itemize} \noindent Both the above extraction protocols are {\em constant round} protocols. \par We present an application of secure quantum extraction protocols to zero-knowledge (ZK). Assuming quantum hardness of learning with errors, we present the first construction of ZK argument systems for NP in constant rounds based on the quantum hardness of learning with errors with: (a) zero-knowledge against QPT malicious verifiers and, (b) soundness against classical PPT adversaries. Moreover, our construction satisfies the stronger (quantum) auxiliary-input zero knowledge property and thus can be composed with other protocols secure against quantum adversaries.
2020
TCC
The notion of multi-key fully homomorphic encryption (multi-key FHE) [Lopez-Alt, Tromer, Vaikuntanathan, STOC'12] was proposed as a generalization of fully homomorphic encryption to the multiparty setting. In a multi-key FHE scheme for $n$ parties, each party can individually choose a key pair and use it to encrypt its own private input. Given n ciphertexts computed in this manner, the parties can homomorphically evaluate a circuit C over them to obtain a new ciphertext containing the output of C, which can then be decrypted via a decryption protocol. The key efficiency property is that the size of the (evaluated) ciphertext is independent of the size of the circuit. Multi-key FHE with one-round decryption [Mukherjee and Wichs, Eurocrypt'16], has found several powerful applications in cryptography over the past few years. However, an important drawback of all such known schemes is that they require a trusted setup. In this work, we address the problem of constructing multi-key FHE in the plain model. We obtain the following results: - A multi-key FHE scheme with one-round decryption based on the hardness of learning with errors (LWE), ring LWE, and decisional small polynomial ratio (DSPR) problems. - A variant of multi-key FHE where we relax the decryption algorithm to be non-compact -- i.e., where the decryption complexity can depend on the size of C -- based on the hardness of LWE. We call this variant multi-homomorphic encryption (MHE). We observe that MHE is already sufficient for some of the applications of multi-key FHE.
2020
ASIACRYPT
Reducing the rounds of interaction in secure multiparty computation (MPC) protocols has been the topic of study of many works. One popular approach to reduce rounds is to construct {\em round compression compilers}. A round compression compiler is one that takes a highly interactive protocol and transforms it into a protocol with far fewer rounds. The design of round compression compilers has traditionally focused on preserving the security properties of the underlying protocol and in particular, not much attention has been given towards preserving their computational and communication efficiency. Indeed, the recent round compression compilers that yield round-optimal MPC protocols incur large computational and communication overhead. In this work, we initiate the study of {\em efficiency-preserving} round compression compilers, i.e. compilers that translate the efficiency benefits of the underlying highly interactive protocols to the fewer round setting. Focusing on the honest majority setting (with near-optimal corruption threshold $\frac{1}{2} - \varepsilon$, for any $\varepsilon > 0$), we devise a new compiler that yields two round (i.e., round optimal) semi-honest MPC with similar communication efficiency as the underlying (arbitrary round) protocol. By applying our compiler on the most efficient known MPC protocols, we obtain a two-round semi-honest protocol based on one-way functions, with total communication (and per-party computation) cost $\widetilde{O}(s+n^4)$ -- a significant improvement over prior two-round protocols with cost $\widetilde{O}(n^\tau s+n^{\tau+1}d)$, where $\tau\geq 2$, $s$ is the size of the circuit computing the function and $d$ the corresponding depth. Our result can also be extended to handle malicious adversaries, either using stronger assumptions in the public key infrastructure (PKI) model, or in the plain model using an extra round. An artifact of our approach is that the resultant protocol is unbalanced'' in the amount of computation performed by different parties. We give evidence that this is {\em necessary} in our setting. Our impossibility result makes novel use of the MPC-in-the-head" paradigm which has typically been used to demonstrate feasibility results.
2019
EUROCRYPT
We provide the first constructions of two round information-theoretic (IT) secure multiparty computation (MPC) protocols in the plain model that tolerate any $t<n/2$t<n/2 malicious corruptions. Our protocols satisfy the strongest achievable standard notions of security in two rounds in different communication models.Previously, IT-MPC protocols in the plain model either required a larger number of rounds, or a smaller minority of corruptions.
2019
CRYPTO
The existence of secure indistinguishability obfuscators ( $i\mathcal {O}$ ) has far-reaching implications, significantly expanding the scope of problems amenable to cryptographic study. All known approaches to constructing $i\mathcal {O}$ rely on d-linear maps. While secure bilinear maps are well established in cryptographic literature, the security of candidates for $d>2$ is poorly understood.We propose a new approach to constructing $i\mathcal {O}$ for general circuits. Unlike all previously known realizations of $i\mathcal {O}$ , we avoid the use of d-linear maps of degree $d \ge 3$ .At the heart of our approach is the assumption that a new weak pseudorandom object exists. We consider two related variants of these objects, which we call perturbation resilient generator ( $\varDelta$ RG) and pseudo flawed-smudging generator ( $\mathrm {PFG}$ ), respectively. At a high level, both objects are polynomially expanding functions whose outputs partially hide (or smudge) small noise vectors when added to them. We further require that they are computable by a family of degree-3 polynomials over $\mathbb {Z}$ . We show how they can be used to construct functional encryption schemes with weak security guarantees. Finally, we use novel amplification techniques to obtain full security.As a result, we obtain $i\mathcal {O}$ for general circuits assuming:Subexponentially secure LWEBilinear Maps $\mathrm {poly}(\lambda )$ -secure 3-block-local PRGs $\varDelta$ RGs or $\mathrm {PFG}$ s
2019
TCC
We construct private-key and public-key functional encryption schemes in the bounded-key setting; that is, secure against adversaries that obtain an a-priori bounded number of functional keys (also known as the collusion bound).An important metric considered in the literature on bounded-key functional encryption schemes is the dependence of the running time of the encryption algorithm on the collusion bound $Q=Q(\lambda )$ (where $\lambda$ is the security parameter). It is known that bounded-key functional encryption schemes with encryption complexity growing with $Q^{1-\varepsilon }$ , for any constant $\varepsilon > 0$ , implies indistinguishability obfuscation. On the other hand, in the public-key setting, it was previously unknown whether we could achieve encryption complexity growing linear with Q, also known as optimal bounded-key FE, based on well-studied assumptions.In this work, we give the first construction of an optimal bounded-key public-key functional encryption scheme under the minimal assumption of the existence of any public-key encryption scheme. Moreover, our scheme supports the class of all polynomial-size circuits.Our techniques also extend to the private-key setting. We achieve a construction of an optimal bounded-key functional encryption in the private-key setting based on the minimal assumption of one-way functions, instead of learning with errors as achieved in prior works.
2019
TCC
Cryptographic combiners allow one to combine many candidates for a cryptographic primitive, possibly based on different computational assumptions, into another candidate with the guarantee that the resulting candidate is secure as long as at least one of the original candidates is secure. While the original motivation of cryptographic combiners was to reduce trust on existing candidates, in this work, we study a rather surprising implication of combiners to constructing secure multiparty computation protocols. Specifically, we initiate the study of functional encryption combiners and show its connection to secure multiparty computation.Functional encryption (FE) has incredible applications towards computing on encrypted data. However, constructing the most general form of this primitive has remained elusive. Although some candidate constructions exist, they rely on nonstandard assumptions, and thus, their security has been questioned. An FE combiner attempts to make use of these candidates while minimizing the trust placed on any individual FE candidate. Informally, an FE combiner takes in a set of FE candidates and outputs a secure FE scheme if at least one of the candidates is secure.Another fundamental area in cryptography is secure multi-party computation (MPC), which has been extensively studied for several decades. In this work, we initiate a formal study of the relationship between functional encryption (FE) combiners and secure multi-party computation (MPC). In particular, we show implications in both directions between these primitives. As a consequence of these implications, we obtain the following main results. A two-round semi-honest MPC protocol in the plain model secure against up to $n-1$ corruptions with communication complexity proportional only to the depth of the circuit being computed assuming learning with errors (LWE). Prior two round protocols based on standard assumptions that achieved this communication complexity required trust assumptions, namely, a common reference string.A functional encryption combiner based on pseudorandom generators (PRGs) in $\mathsf {NC}^1$. This is a weak assumption as such PRGs are implied by many concrete intractability problems commonly used in cryptography, such as ones related to factoring, discrete logarithm, and lattice problems [11]. Previous constructions of FE combiners, implicit in [7], were known only from LWE. Using this result, we build a universal construction of functional encryption: an explicit construction of functional encryption based only on the assumptions that functional encryption exists and PRGs in $\mathsf {NC}^1$.
2019
TCC
In this work, we define and construct fully homomorphic non-interactive zero knowledge (FH-NIZK) and non-interactive witness-indistinguishable (FH-NIWI) proof systems.     We focus on the NP complete language L, where, for a boolean circuit C and a bit b, the pair $(C,b)\in L$ if there exists an input $\mathbf {w}$ such that $C(\mathbf {w})=b$. For this language, we call a non-interactive proof system fully homomorphic if, given instances $(C_i,b_i)\in L$ along with their proofs $\varPi _i$, for $i\in \{1,\ldots ,k\}$, and given any circuit $D:\{0,1\}^k\rightarrow \{0,1\}$, one can efficiently compute a proof $\varPi$ for $(C^*,b)\in L$, where $C^*(\mathbf {w}^{(1)},\ldots ,\mathbf {w}^{(k)})=D(C_1(\mathbf {w}^{(1)}),\ldots ,C_k(\mathbf {w}^{(k)}))$ and $D(b_1,\ldots ,b_k)=b$. The key security property is unlinkability: the resulting proof $\varPi$ is indistinguishable from a fresh proof of the same statement.     Our first result, under the Decision Linear Assumption (DLIN), is an FH-NIZK proof system for L in the common random string model. Our more surprising second result (under a new decisional assumption on groups with bilinear maps) is an FH-NIWI proof system that requires no setup.
2019
ASIACRYPT
Attribute based encryption (ABE) is an advanced encryption system with a built-in mechanism to generate keys associated with functions which in turn provide restricted access to encrypted data. Most of the known candidates of attribute based encryption model the functions as circuits. This results in significant efficiency bottlenecks, especially in the setting where the function associated with the ABE key is represented by a random access machine (RAM) and a database, with the runtime of the RAM program being sublinear in the database size. In this work we study the notion of attribute based encryption for random access machines (RAMs), introduced in the work of Goldwasser, Kalai, Popa, Vaikuntanathan and Zeldovich (Crypto 2013). We present a construction of attribute based encryption for RAMs satisfying sublinear decryption complexity assuming learning with errors; this is the first construction based on standard assumptions. Previously, Goldwasser et al. achieved this result based on non-falsifiable knowledge assumptions. We also consider a dual notion of ABE for RAMs, where the database is in the ciphertext and we show how to achieve this dual notion, albeit with large attribute keys, also based on learning with errors.
2018
CRYPTO
We consider the problem of protecting general computations against constant-rate random leakage. That is, the computation is performed by a randomized boolean circuit that maps a randomly encoded input to a randomly encoded output, such that even if the value of every wire is independently leaked with some constant probability $p > 0$ p>0, the leakage reveals essentially nothing about the input.In this work we provide a conceptually simple, modular approach for solving the above problem, providing a simpler and self-contained alternative to previous constructions of Ajtai (STOC 2011) and Andrychowicz et al. (Eurocrypt 2016). We also obtain several extensions and generalizations of this result. In particular, we show that for every leakage probability $p<1$ p<1, there is a finite basis $\mathbb {B}$ B such that leakage-resilient computation with leakage probability p can be realized using circuits over the basis $\mathbb {B}$ B. We obtain similar positive results for the stronger notion of leakage tolerance, where the input is not encoded, but the leakage from the entire computation can be simulated given random $p'$ p′-leakage of input values alone, for any $p<p'<1$ p<p′<1. Finally, we complement this by a negative result, showing that for every basis $\mathbb {B}$ B there is some leakage probability $p<1$ p<1 such that for any $p'<1$ p′<1, leakage tolerance as above cannot be achieved in general.We show that our modular approach is also useful for protecting computations against worst case leakage. In this model, we require that leakage of any $\mathbf{t}$ t (adversarially chosen) wires reveal nothing about the input. By combining our construction with a previous derandomization technique of Ishai et al. (ICALP 2013), we show that security in this setting can be achieved with $O(\mathbf{t}^{1+\varepsilon })$ O(t1+ε) random bits, for every constant $\varepsilon > 0$ ε>0. This (near-optimal) bound significantly improves upon previous constructions that required more than $\mathbf{t}^{3}$ t3 random bits.
2018
CRYPTO
We study the exact round complexity of secure multiparty computation (MPC) in the honest majority setting. We construct several round-optimaln-party protocols, tolerating any $t<\frac{n}{2}$ corruptions. 1.Security with abort: We give the first construction of two round MPC for general functions that achieves security with abort against malicious adversaries in the plain model. The security of our protocol only relies on one-way functions.2.Guaranteed output delivery: We also construct protocols that achieve security with guaranteed output delivery: (i) Against fail-stop adversaries, we construct two round MPC either in the (bare) public-key infrastructure model with no additional assumptions, or in the plain model assuming two-round semi-honest oblivious transfer. In three rounds, however, we can achieve security assuming only one-way functions. (ii) Against malicious adversaries, we construct three round MPC in the plain model, assuming public-key encryption and Zaps.Previously, such protocols were only known based on specific learning assumptions and required the use of common reference strings. All of our results are obtained via general compilers that may be of independent interest.
2018
TCC
We study a simulation paradigm, referred to as local simulation, in garbling schemes. This paradigm captures simulation proof strategies in which the simulator consists of many local simulators that generate different blocks of the garbled circuit. A useful property of such a simulation strategy is that only a few of these local simulators depend on the input, whereas the rest of the local simulators only depend on the circuit.We formalize this notion by defining locally simulatable garbling schemes. By suitably realizing this notion, we give a new construction of succinct garbling schemes for Turing machines assuming the polynomial hardness of compact functional encryption and standard assumptions (such as either CDH or LWE). Prior constructions of succinct garbling schemes either assumed sub-exponential hardness of compact functional encryption or were designed only for small-space Turing machines.We also show that a variant of locally simulatable garbling schemes can be used to generically obtain adaptively secure garbling schemes for circuits. All prior constructions of adaptively secure garbling that use somewhere equivocal encryption can be seen as instantiations of our construction.
2017
EUROCRYPT
2017
EUROCRYPT
2017
EUROCRYPT
2017
EUROCRYPT
2017
CRYPTO
2017
CRYPTO
2017
TCC
2016
CRYPTO
2016
TCC
2015
CRYPTO
2015
CRYPTO
2014
CRYPTO
2014
PKC
2014
TCC
2013
TCC

Crypto 2022
PKC 2022
TCC 2020
PKC 2018
Asiacrypt 2018