## CryptoDB

### Serge Fehr

#### Publications

Year
Venue
Title
2022
EUROCRYPT
We show the following generic result: Whenever a quantum query algorithm in the quantum random-oracle model outputs a classical value t that is promised to be in some tight relation with H(x) for some x, then x can be efficiently extracted with almost certainty. The extraction is by means of a suitable simulation of the random oracle and works online, meaning that it is straightline, i.e., without rewinding, and on- the-fly, i.e., during the protocol execution and without disturbing it. The technical core of our result is a new commutator bound that bounds the operator norm of the commutator of the unitary operator that describes the evolution of the compressed oracle (which is used to simulate the random oracle above) and of the measurement that extracts x. We show two applications of our generic online extractability result. We show tight online extractability of commit-and-open Σ-protocols in the quantum setting, and we offer the first complete post-quantum security proof of the textbook Fujisaki-Okamoto transformation, i.e, without adjustments to facilitate the proof, including concrete security bounds.
2022
CRYPTO
Commit-and-open sigma-protocols are a popular class of protocols for constructing non-interactive zero-knowledge arguments and digital-signature schemes via the Fiat-Shamir transformation. Instantiated with hash-based commitments, the resulting non-interactive schemes enjoy tight online-extractability in the random oracle model. Online extractability improves the tightness of security proofs for the resulting digital-signature schemes by avoiding lossy rewinding or forking-lemma based extraction. In this work, we prove tight online extractability in the quantum random oracle model (QROM), showing that the construction supports post-quantum security. First, we consider the default case where committing is done by element-wise hashing. In a second part, we extend our result to Merkle-tree based commitments. Our results yield a significant improvement of the provable post-quantum security of the digital-signature scheme Picnic. Our analysis makes use of a recent framework by Chung et al. [CFHL21] for analysing quantum algorithms in the QROM using purely classical reasoning. Therefore, our results can to a large extent be understood and verified without prior knowledge of quantum information science.
2022
CRYPTO
In many occasions, the knowledge error $\kappa$ of an interactive proof is not small enough, and thus needs to be reduced. This can be done generically by repeating the interactive proof in parallel. While there have been many works studying the effect of parallel repetition on the {\em soundness error} of interactive proofs and arguments, the effect of parallel repetition on the {\em knowledge error} has largely remained unstudied. Only recently it was shown that the $t$-fold parallel repetition of {\em any} interactive protocol reduces the knowledge error from $\kappa$ down to $\kappa^t +\nu$ for any non-negligible term $\nu$. This generic result is suboptimal in that it does not give the knowledge error $\kappa^t$ that one would expect for typical protocols, and, worse, the knowledge error remains non-negligible. In this work we show that indeed the $t$-fold parallel repetition of any $(k_1,\dots,k_{\mu})$-special-sound multi-round public-coin interactive proof optimally reduces the knowledge error from $\kappa$ down to $\kappa^t$. At the core of our results is an alternative, in some sense more fine-grained, measure of quality of a dishonest prover than its success probability, for which we show that it characterizes when knowledge extraction is possible. This new measure then turns out to be very convenient when it comes to analyzing the parallel repetition of such interactive proofs. While parallel repetition reduces the knowledge error, it is easily seen to {\em increase} the {\em completeness error}. For this reason, we generalize our result to the case of $s$-out-of-$t$ threshold parallel repetition, where the verifier accepts if $s$ out of $t$ of the parallel instances are accepting. An appropriately chosen threshold $s$ allows both the knowledge error and completeness error to be reduced simultaneously.
2022
TCC
The celebrated Fiat-Shamir transformation turns any public-coin interactive proof into a non-interactive one, which inherits the main security properties (in the random oracle model) of the interactive version. While originally considered in the context of 3-move public-coin interactive proofs, i.e., so-called $\Sigma$-protocols, it is now applied to multi-round protocols as well. Unfortunately, the security loss for a $(2\mu + 1)$-move protocol is, in general, approximately $Q^\mu$, where $Q$ is the number of oracle queries performed by the attacker. In general, this is the best one can hope for, as it is easy to see that this loss applies to the $\mu$-fold sequential repetition of $\Sigma$-protocols, but it raises the question whether certain (natural) classes of interactive proofs feature a milder security loss. In this work, we give positive and negative results on this question. On the positive side, we show that for $(k_1, \ldots, k_\mu)$-special-sound protocols (which cover a broad class of use cases), the knowledge error degrades linearly in $Q$, instead of $Q^\mu$. On the negative side, we show that for $t$-fold \emph{parallel repetitions} of typical $(k_1, \ldots, k_\mu)$-special-sound protocols with $t \geq \mu$ (and assuming for simplicity that $t$ and $Q$ are integer multiples of $\mu$), there is an attack that results in a security loss of approximately~$\frac12 Q^\mu /\mu^{\mu+t}$.
2022
TCC
In the first part of the paper, we show a generic compiler that transforms any oracle algorithm that can query multiple oracles adaptively, i.e., can decide on which oracle to query at what point dependent on previous oracle responses, into a static algorithm that fixes these choices at the beginning of the execution. Compared to naive ways of achieving this, our compiler controls the blow up in query complexity for each oracle individually, and causes a very mild blow up only. In the second part of the paper, we use our compiler to show the security of the very efficient hash-based split-key PRF proposed by Giacon, Heuer and Poettering (PKC 2018), in the quantum random oracle model. Using a split-key PRF as the key-derivation function gives rise to a secure a KEM combiner. Thus, our result shows that the hash-based construction of Giacon et al. can be safely used in the context of quantum attacks, for instance to combine a well-established but only classically-secure KEM with a candidate KEM that is believed to be quantum-secure. Our security proof for the split-key PRF crucially relies on our adaptive-to-static compiler, but we expect our compiler to be useful beyond this particular application. Indeed, we discuss a couple of other, known results from the literature that would have profitted from our compiler, in that these works had to go though serious complications in oder to deal with adaptivity.
2021
EUROCRYPT
We revisit the so-called compressed oracle technique, introduced by Zhandry for analyzing quantum algorithms in the quantum random oracle model (QROM). To start off with, we offer a concise exposition of the technique, which easily extends to the parallel-query QROM, where in each query-round the considered algorithm may make several queries to the QROM in parallel. This variant of the QROM allows for a more fine-grained query-complexity analysis. Our main technical contribution is a framework that simplifies the use of (the parallel-query generalization of) the compressed oracle technique for proving query complexity results. With our framework in place, whenever applicable, it is possible to prove quantum query complexity lower bounds by means of purely classical reasoning. More than that, for typical examples the crucial classical observations that give rise to the classical bounds are sufficient to conclude the corresponding quantum bounds. We demonstrate this on a few examples, recovering known results but also obtaining new results. Our main target is the hardness of finding a q-chain with fewer than q parallel queries, i.e., a sequence x_0, x_1, ..., x_q with x_i = H(x_{i-1}) for all 1 \leq i \leq q. The above problem of finding a hash chain is of fundamental importance in the context of proofs of sequential work. Indeed, as a concrete cryptographic application of our techniques, we prove quantum security of the Simple Proofs of Sequential Work'' by Cohen and Pietrzak.
2021
CRYPTO
In a proof of partial knowledge, introduced by Cramer, Damg{\aa}rd and Schoenmakers (CRYPTO 1994), a prover knowing witnesses for some $k$-subset of $n$ given public statements can convince the verifier of this claim without revealing which $k$-subset. Their solution combines $\Sigma$-protocol theory and linear secret sharing, and achieves linear communication complexity for general $k,n$. Especially the one-out-of-$n$'' case $k=1$ has seen myriad applications during the last decades, e.g., in electronic voting, ring signatures, and confidential transaction systems. In this paper we focus on the discrete logarithm (DL) setting, where the prover claims knowledge of DLs of $k$-out-of-$n$ given elements. Groth and Kohlweiss (EUROCRYPT 2015) have shown how to solve the special case $k=1$ %, yet arbitrary~$n$, with {\em logarithmic} (in $n$) communication, instead of linear as prior work. However, their method takes explicit advantage of $k=1$ and does not generalize to $k>1$. Alternatively, an {\em indirect} approach for solving the considered problem is by translating the $k$-out-of-$n$ relation into a circuit and then applying communication-efficient circuit ZK. Indeed, for the $k=1$ case this approach has been highly optimized, e.g., in ZCash. Our main contribution is a new, simple honest-verifier zero-knowledge proof protocol for proving knowledge of $k$ out of $n$ DLs with {\em logarithmic} communication and {\em for general $k$ and $n$}, without requiring any generic circuit ZK machinery. Our solution puts forward a novel extension of the {\em compressed} $\Sigma$-protocol theory (CRYPTO 2020), which we then utilize to compress a new $\Sigma$-protocol for proving knowledge of $k$-out-of-$n$ DL's down to logarithmic size. The latter $\Sigma$-protocol is inspired by the CRYPTO 1994 approach, but a careful re-design of the original protocol is necessary for the compression technique to apply. Interestingly, {\em even for $k=1$ and general $n$} our approach improves prior {\em direct} approaches as it reduces prover complexity without increasing the communication complexity. Besides the conceptual simplicity, we also identify regimes of practical relevance where our approach achieves asymptotic and concrete improvements, e.g., in proof size and prover complexity, over the generic approach based on circuit-ZK. Finally, we show various extensions and generalizations of our core result. For instance, we extend our protocol to proofs of partial knowledge of Pedersen (vector) commitment openings, and/or to include a proof that the witness satisfies some additional constraint, and we show how to extend our results to non-threshold access structures.
2020
TCC
We show a robust secret sharing scheme for a maximal threshold $t < n/2$ that features an optimal overhead in share size, offers security against a rushing adversary, and runs in polynomial time. Previous robust secret sharing schemes for $t < n/2$ either suffered from a suboptimal overhead, offered no (provable) security against a rushing adversary, or ran in superpolynomial time.
2020
EUROCRYPT
The Hidden Subgroup Problem (HSP) aims at capturing all problems that are susceptible to be solvable in quantum polynomial time following the blueprints of Shor's celebrated algorithm. Successful solutions to this problems over various commutative groups allow to efficiently perform number-theoretic tasks such as factoring or finding discrete logarithms. The latest successful generalization (Eisenträger et al. STOC 2014) considers the problem of finding a full-rank lattice as the hidden subgroup of the continuous vector space R^m, even for large dimensions m. It unlocked new cryptanalytic algorithms (Biasse-Song SODA 2016, Cramer et al. EUROCRYPT 2016 and 2017), in particular to find mildly short vectors in ideal lattices. The cryptanalytic relevance of such a problem raises the question of a more refined and quantitative complexity analysis. In the light of the increasing physical difficulty of maintaining a large entanglement of qubits, the degree of concern may be different whether the above algorithm requires only linearly many qubits or a much larger polynomial amount of qubits. This is the question we start addressing with this work. We propose a detailed analysis of (a variation of) the aforementioned HSP algorithm, and conclude on its complexity as a function of all the relevant parameters. Our modular analysis is tailored to support the optimization of future specialization to cases of cryptanalytic interests. We suggest a few ideas in this direction.
2020
CRYPTO
We revisit recent works by Don, Fehr, Majenz and Schaffner and by Liu and Zhandry on the security of the Fiat-Shamir transformation of sigma-protocols in the quantum random oracle model (QROM). Two natural questions that arise in this context are: (1) whether the results extend to the Fiat-Shamir transformation of {\em multi-round} interactive proofs, and (2) whether Don et al.'s O(q^2) loss in security is optimal. Firstly, we answer question (1) in the affirmative. As a byproduct of solving a technical difficulty in proving this result, we slightly improve the result of Don et al., equipping it with a cleaner bound and an even simpler proof. We apply our result to digital signature schemes showing that it can be used to prove strong security for schemes like MQDSS in the QROM. As another application we prove QROM-security of a non-interactive OR proof by Liu, Wei and Wong. As for question (2), we show via a Grover-search based attack that Don et al.'s quadratic security loss for the Fiat-Shamir transformation of sigma-protocols is optimal up to a small constant factor. This extends to our new multi-round result, proving it tight up to a factor that depends on the number of rounds only, i.e. is constant for any constant-round interactive proof.
2019
EUROCRYPT
Robust secret sharing enables the reconstruction of a secret-shared message in the presence of up to t (out of n) incorrect shares. The most challenging case is when $n = 2t+1$, which is the largest t for which the task is still possible, up to a small error probability $2^{-\kappa }$ and with some overhead in the share size.Recently, Bishop, Pastro, Rajaraman and Wichs [3] proposed a scheme with an (almost) optimal overhead of $\widetilde{O}(\kappa )$. This seems to answer the open question posed by Cevallos et al. [6] who proposed a scheme with overhead of $\widetilde{O}(n+\kappa )$ and asked whether the linear dependency on n was necessary or not. However, a subtle issue with Bishop et al.’s solution is that it (implicitly) assumes a non-rushing adversary, and thus it satisfies a weaker notion of security compared to the scheme by Cevallos et al. [6], or to the classical scheme by Rabin and BenOr [13].In this work, we almost close this gap. We propose a new robust secret sharing scheme that offers full security against a rushing adversary, and that has an overhead of $O(\kappa n^\varepsilon )$, where $\varepsilon > 0$ is arbitrary but fixed. This $n^\varepsilon$-factor is obviously worse than the $\mathrm {polylog}(n)$-factor hidden in the $\widetilde{O}$ notation of the scheme of Bishop et al. [3], but it greatly improves on the linear dependency on n of the best known scheme that features security against a rushing adversary (when $\kappa$ is substantially smaller than n).A small variation of our scheme has the same $\widetilde{O}(\kappa )$ overhead as the scheme of Bishop et al. and achieves security against a rushing adversary, but suffers from a (slightly) superpolynomial reconstruction complexity.
2019
CRYPTO
The famous Fiat-Shamir transformation turns any public-coin three-round interactive proof, i.e., any so-called $\Sigma {\text {-protocol}}$ , into a non-interactive proof in the random-oracle model. We study this transformation in the setting of a quantum adversary that in particular may query the random oracle in quantum superposition.Our main result is a generic reduction that transforms any quantum dishonest prover attacking the Fiat-Shamir transformation in the quantum random-oracle model into a similarly successful quantum dishonest prover attacking the underlying $\Sigma {\text {-protocol}}$ (in the standard model). Applied to the standard soundness and proof-of-knowledge definitions, our reduction implies that both these security properties, in both the computational and the statistical variant, are preserved under the Fiat-Shamir transformation even when allowing quantum attacks. Our result improves and completes the partial results that have been known so far, but it also proves wrong certain claims made in the literature.In the context of post-quantum secure signature schemes, our results imply that for any $\Sigma {\text {-protocol}}$ that is a proof-of-knowledge against quantum dishonest provers (and that satisfies some additional natural properties), the corresponding Fiat-Shamir signature scheme is secure in the quantum random-oracle model. For example, we can conclude that the non-optimized version of Fish, which is the bare Fiat-Shamir variant of the NIST candidate Picnic, is secure in the quantum random-oracle model.
2018
TOSC
A non-malleable code is an unkeyed randomized encoding scheme that offers the strong guarantee that decoding a tampered codeword either results in the original message, or in an unrelated message. We consider the simplest possible construction in the computational split-state model, which simply encodes a message m as k||Ek(m) for a uniformly random key k, where E is a block cipher. This construction is comparable to, but greatly simplifies over, the one of Kiayias et al. (ACM CCS 2016), who eschewed this simple scheme in fear of related-key attacks on E. In this work, we prove this construction to be a strong non-malleable code as long as E is (i) a pseudorandom permutation under leakage and (ii) related-key secure with respect to an arbitrary but fixed key relation. Both properties are believed to hold for “good” block ciphers, such as AES-128, making this non-malleable code very efficient with short codewords of length |m|+2τ (where τ is the security parameter, e.g., 128 bits), without significant security penalty.
2018
TCC
We investigate sampling procedures that certify that an arbitrary quantum state on n subsystems is close to an ideal mixed state $\varphi ^{\otimes n}$ for a given reference state $\varphi$, up to errors on a few positions. This task makes no sense classically: it would correspond to certifying that a given bitstring was generated according to some desired probability distribution. However, in the quantum case, this is possible if one has access to a prover who can supply a purification of the mixed state.In this work, we introduce the concept of mixed-state certification, and we show that a natural sampling protocol offers secure certification in the presence of a possibly dishonest prover: if the verifier accepts then he can be almost certain that the state in question has been correctly prepared, up to a small number of errors.We then apply this result to two-party quantum coin-tossing. Given that strong coin tossing is impossible, it is natural to ask “how close can we get”. This question has been well studied and is nowadays well understood from the perspective of the bias of individual coin tosses. We approach and answer this question from a different—and somewhat orthogonal—perspective, where we do not look at individual coin tosses but at the global entropy instead. We show how two distrusting parties can produce a common high-entropy source, where the entropy is an arbitrarily small fraction below the maximum.
2018
TCC
Hash functions are of fundamental importance in theoretical and in practical cryptography, and with the threat of quantum computers possibly emerging in the future, it is an urgent objective to understand the security of hash functions in the light of potential future quantum attacks. To this end, we reconsider the collapsing property of hash functions, as introduced by Unruh, which replaces the notion of collision resistance when considering quantum attacks. Our contribution is a formalism and a framework that offers significantly simpler proofs for the collapsing property of hash functions. With our framework, we can prove the collapsing property for hash domain extension constructions entirely by means of decomposing the iteration function into suitable elementary composition operations. In particular, given our framework, one can argue purely classically about the quantum-security of hash functions; this is in contrast to previous proofs which are in terms of sophisticated quantum-information-theoretic and quantum-algorithmic reasoning.
2017
EUROCRYPT
2016
EUROCRYPT
2016
CRYPTO
2015
EUROCRYPT
2015
CRYPTO
2013
TCC
2013
EUROCRYPT
2012
EUROCRYPT
2012
CRYPTO
2011
CRYPTO
2011
EUROCRYPT
2010
CRYPTO
2010
EUROCRYPT
2009
TCC
2009
CRYPTO
2008
TCC
2008
EUROCRYPT
2008
CRYPTO
2007
CRYPTO
2007
CRYPTO
2007
TCC
2006
CRYPTO
2005
CRYPTO
2004
CRYPTO
2004
CRYPTO
2004
TCC
2003
EUROCRYPT
2002
ASIACRYPT
2002
CRYPTO
2002
CRYPTO
2001
CRYPTO

#### Program Committees

Eurocrypt 2019
Eurocrypt 2018
TCC 2017
PKC 2017 (Program chair)
TCC 2015
Crypto 2014
Eurocrypt 2014
Crypto 2012
Crypto 2011
Crypto 2010
Eurocrypt 2009
Asiacrypt 2009
Eurocrypt 2008
Asiacrypt 2008
TCC 2007
Eurocrypt 2007
Asiacrypt 2007
PKC 2006