International Association
for Cryptologic Research

We introduce $\mathsf{pKt}$ complexity, a new notion of time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity that can be seen as a probabilistic analogue of Levin's $\mathsf{Kt}$ complexity. Using $\mathsf{pKt}$ complexity, we upgrade two recent frameworks that characterize one-way functions ($\mathsf{OWF}$) via symmetry of information and meta-complexity, respectively. Among other contributions, we establish the following results:

- $\mathsf{OWF}$ can be based on the worst-case assumption that $\mathsf{BPEXP}$ is not contained infinitely often in $\mathsf{P}/\mathsf{poly}$ if the failure of symmetry of information for $\mathsf{pKt}$ in the $\textit{worst-case}$ implies its failure on $\textit{average}$. - $\mathsf{OWF}$ exist if and only if the average-case easiness of approximating $\mathsf{pKt}$ with $\textit{two-sided}$ error implies its (mild) average-case easiness with $\textit{one-sided}$ error.

Previously, in a celebrated result, Liu and Pass (CRYPTO 2021 and CACM 2023) proved that one can base (infinitely-often) $\mathsf{OWF}$ on the assumption that $\mathsf{EXP} \nsubseteq \mathsf{BPP}$ if and only if there is a reduction from computing $\mathsf{Kt}$ on average with $\textit{zero}$ error to computing $\mathsf{Kt}$ on average with $\textit{two-sided}$ error. In contrast, our second result shows that closing the gap between two-sided error and one-sided error average-case algorithms for approximating $\mathsf{pKt}$ is both necessary and sufficient to $\textit{unconditionally}$ establish the existence of $\mathsf{OWF}$.