## CryptoDB

### Mark Zhandry

#### Publications

Year
Venue
Title
2021
EUROCRYPT
In this paper, we study relationship between security of cryptographic schemes in the random oracle model (ROM) and quantum random oracle model (QROM). First, we introduce a notion of a proof of quantum access to a random oracle (PoQRO), which is a protocol to prove the capability to quantumly access a random oracle to a classical verifier. We observe that a proof of quantumness recently proposed by Brakerski et al. (TQC '20) can be seen as a PoQRO. We also give a construction of a publicly verifiable PoQRO relative to a classical oracle. Based on them, we construct digital signature and public key encryption schemes that are secure in the ROM but insecure in the QROM. In particular, we obtain the first examples of natural cryptographic schemes that separate the ROM and QROM under a standard cryptographic assumption. On the other hand, we give lifting theorems from security in the ROM to that in the QROM for certain types of cryptographic schemes and security notions. For example, our lifting theorems are applicable to Fiat-Shamir non-interactive arguments, Fiat-Shamir signatures, and Full-Domain-Hash signatures etc. We also discuss applications of our lifting theorems to quantum query complexity.
2021
CRYPTO
Quantum copy protection uses the unclonability of quantum states to construct quantum software that provably cannot be pirated. Copy protection would be immensely useful, but unfortunately little is known about how to achieve it in general. In this work, we make progress on this goal, by giving the following results: * We show how to copy protect any program that cannot be learned from its input-output behavior, relative to a classical oracle. This improves on Aaronson (CCC 2009), which achieves the same relative to a quantum oracle. By instantiating the oracle with post-quantum candidate obfuscation schemes, we obtain a heuristic construction of copy protection. * We show, roughly, that any program which can be watermarked can be copy detected, a weaker version of copy protection that does not prevent copying, but guarantees that any copying can be detected. Our scheme relies on the security of the assumed watermarking, plus the assumed existence of public key quantum money. Our construction is general, applicable to many recent watermarking schemes.
2021
CRYPTO
In 2012, Aaronson and Christiano introduced the idea of hidden subspace states to build public-key quantum money [STOC '12]. Since then, this idea has been applied to realize several other cryptographic primitives which enjoy some form of unclonability. In this work, we propose a generalization of hidden subspace states to hidden coset states. We study different unclonable properties of coset states and several applications: * We show that, assuming indistinguishability obfuscation (iO), hidden coset states possess a certain direct product hardness property, which immediately implies a tokenized signature scheme in the plain model. Previously, a tokenized signature scheme was known only relative to an oracle, from a work of Ben-David and Sattath [QCrypt '17]. * Combining a tokenized signature scheme with extractable witness encryption, we give a construction of an unclonable decryption scheme in the plain model. The latter primitive was recently proposed by Georgiou and Zhandry [ePrint '20], who gave a construction relative to a classical oracle. * We conjecture that coset states satisfy a certain natural monogamy-of-entanglement property. Assuming this conjecture is true, we remove the requirement for extractable witness encryption in our unclonable decryption construction. As potential evidence in support of the conjecture, we prove a weaker version of this monogamy property, which we believe will still be of independent interest. * Finally, we give the first construction of a copy-protection scheme for pseudorandom functions (PRFs) in the plain model. Our scheme is secure either assuming iO and extractable witness encryption, or iO, LWE and the conjectured monogamy property mentioned above. This is the first example of a copy-protection scheme with provable security in the plain model for a class of functions that is not evasive.
2021
CRYPTO
Traitor tracing aims to identify the source of leaked decryption keys. Since the traitor'' can try to hide their key within obfuscated code in order to evade tracing, the tracing algorithm should work for general, potentially obfuscated, decoder \emph{programs}. In the setting of such general decoder programs, prior work uses \emph{black box} tracing: the tracing algorithm ignores the implementation of the decoder, and instead traces just by making queries to the decoder and observing the outputs. We observe that, in some settings, such black box tracing leads to consistency and user privacy issues. On the other hand, these issues do not appear inherent to \emph{white box} tracing, where the tracing algorithm actually inspects the decoder implementation. We therefore develop new white box traitor tracing schemes providing consistency and/or privacy. Our schemes can be instantiated under various assumptions ranging from public key encryption to indistinguishability obfuscation, with different trade-offs. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first work to consider white box tracing in the general decoder setting.
2021
ASIACRYPT
Indifferentiability is used to analyze the security of constructions of idealized objects, such as random oracles or ideal ciphers. Reset indifferentiability is a strengthening of plain indifferentiability which is applicable in far more scenarios, but has largely been abandoned due to significant impossibility results and a lack of positive results. Our main results are: - Under \emph{weak} reset indifferentiability, ideal ciphers imply (fixed size) random oracles, and domain shrinkage is possible. We thus show reset indifferentiability is more useful than previously thought. - We lift our analysis to the quantum setting, showing that ideal ciphers imply random oracles under quantum indifferentiability. - Despite Shor's algorithm, we observe that generic groups are still meaningful quantumly, showing that they are quantumly (reset) indifferentiable from ideal ciphers; combined with the above, cryptographic groups yield post-quantum \emph{symmetric} key cryptography. In particular, we obtain a plausible post-quantum random oracle that is a subset-product followed by two modular reductions.
2020
CRYPTO
We initiate the study of indifferentiability for public key encryption and other public key primitives. Our main results are definitions and constructions of public key cryptosystems that are indifferentiable from ideal cryptosystems, in the random oracle model. Cryptosystems include: 1) Public key encryption; 2) Digital signatures; 3) Non-interactive key agreement. Our schemes are based on relatively standard public key assumptions. By being indifferentiable from an ideal object, our schemes automatically satisfy a wide range of security properties, including any property representable as a single-stage game, and can be composed to operate in higher-level protocols.
2020
CRYPTO
The best existing traitor tracing scheme from pairings achieves $O(\sqrt{N})$-sized parameters, which has stood since 2006. This intuitively seems to be consistent with the fact that pairings allow for degree-2 computations, yielding a quadratic compression. In this work, we show that this intuition is false by building a traitor tracing scheme from pairings with $O(\sqrt[3]{N})$-sized parameters. We obtain our scheme by developing a number of new traitor tracing techniques offering various trade-offs that were not possible before, giving the first significant parameter improvements in pairings-based traitor tracing in over a decade.
2020
TCC
We explore the problem of traitor tracing where the pirate decoder can contain a quantum state. Our main results include: - We show how to overcome numerous definitional challenges to give a meaningful notion of tracing for quantum decoders - We give negative results, demonstrating barriers to adapting classical tracing algorithms to the quantum decoder setting. - On the other hand, we show how to trace quantum decoders in the setting of (public key) private linear broadcast encryption, capturing a common approach to traitor tracing.
2020
TCC
Witness hiding proofs require that the verifier cannot find a witness after seeing a proof. The exact round complexity needed for witness hiding proofs has so far remained an open question. In this work, we provide compelling evidence that witness hiding proofs are achievable non-interactively for wide classes of languages. We use non-interactive witness indistinguishable proofs as the basis for all of our protocols. We give four schemes in different settings under different assumptions: – A universal non-interactive proof that is witness hiding as long as any proof system, possibly an inefficient and/or non-uniform scheme, is witness hiding, has a known bound on verifier runtime, and has short proofs of soundness. – A non-uniform non-interactive protocol justified under a worst-case complexity assumption that is witness hiding and efficient, but may not have short proofs of soundness. – A new security analysis of the two-message argument of Pass [Crypto 2003], showing witness hiding for any non-uniformly hard distribution. We propose a heuristic approach to removing the first message, yielding a non-interactive argument. – A witness hiding non-interactive proof system for languages with unique witnesses, assuming the non-existence of a weak form of witness encryption for any language in NP ? coNP.
2019
EUROCRYPT
We construct deterministic public key encryption secure for any constant number of arbitrarily correlated computationally unpredictable messages. Prior works required either random oracles or non-standard knowledge assumptions. In contrast, our constructions are based on the exponential hardness of DDH, which is plausible in elliptic curve groups. Our central tool is a new trapdoored extremely lossy function, which modifies extremely lossy functions by adding a trapdoor.
2019
EUROCRYPT
A k-collision for a compressing hash function H is a set of k distinct inputs that all map to the same output. In this work, we show that for any constant k, $\varTheta \left( N^{\frac{1}{2}(1-\frac{1}{2^k-1})}\right)$ quantum queries are both necessary and sufficient to achieve a k-collision with constant probability. This improves on both the best prior upper bound (Hosoyamada et al., ASIACRYPT 2017) and provides the first non-trivial lower bound, completely resolving the problem.
2019
EUROCRYPT
The bounded storage model promises unconditional security proofs against computationally unbounded adversaries, so long as the adversary’s space is bounded. In this work, we develop simple new constructions of two-party key agreement, bit commitment, and oblivious transfer in this model. In addition to simplicity, our constructions have several advantages over prior work, including an improved number of rounds and enhanced correctness. Our schemes are based on Raz’s lower bound for learning parities.
2019
EUROCRYPT
Public key quantum money can be seen as a version of the quantum no-cloning theorem that holds even when the quantum states can be verified by the adversary. In this work, we investigate quantum lightning where no-cloning holds even when the adversary herself generates the quantum state to be cloned. We then study quantum money and quantum lightning, showing the following results:We demonstrate the usefulness of quantum lightning beyond quantum money by showing several potential applications, such as generating random strings with a proof of entropy, to completely decentralized cryptocurrency without a block-chain, where transactions is instant and local.We give Either/Or results for quantum money/lightning, showing that either signatures/hash functions/commitment schemes meet very strong recently proposed notions of security, or they yield quantum money or lightning. Given the difficulty in constructing public key quantum money, this suggests that natural schemes do attain strong security guarantees.We show that instantiating the quantum money scheme of Aaronson and Christiano [STOC’12] with indistinguishability obfuscation that is secure against quantum computers yields a secure quantum money scheme. This construction can be seen as an instance of our Either/Or result for signatures, giving the first separation between two security notions for signatures from the literature.Finally, we give a plausible construction for quantum lightning, which we prove secure under an assumption related to the multi-collision resistance of degree-2 hash functions. Our construction is inspired by our Either/Or result for hash functions, and yields the first plausible standard model instantiation of a non-collapsing collision resistant hash function. This improves on a result of Unruh [Eurocrypt’16] which is relative to a quantum oracle.
2019
EUROCRYPT
A conjunction is a function $f(x_1,\dots ,x_n) = \bigwedge _{i \in S} l_i$ where $S \subseteq [n]$ and each $l_i$ is $x_i$ or $\lnot x_i$. Bishop et al. (CRYPTO 2018) recently proposed obfuscating conjunctions by embedding them in the error positions of a noisy Reed-Solomon codeword and placing the codeword in a group exponent. They prove distributional virtual black box (VBB) security in the generic group model for random conjunctions where $|S| \ge 0.226n$. While conjunction obfuscation is known from LWE [31, 47], these constructions rely on substantial technical machinery.In this work, we conduct an extensive study of simple conjunction obfuscation techniques. We abstract the Bishop et al. scheme to obtain an equivalent yet more efficient “dual” scheme that can handle conjunctions over exponential size alphabets. This scheme admits a straightforward proof of generic group security, which we combine with a novel combinatorial argument to obtain distributional VBB security for |S| of any size.If we replace the Reed-Solomon code with a random binary linear code, we can prove security from standard LPN and avoid encoding in a group. This addresses an open problem posed by Bishop et al. to prove security of this simple approach in the standard model.We give a new construction that achieves information theoretic distributional VBB security and weak functionality preservation for $|S| \ge n - n^\delta$ and $\delta < 1$. Assuming discrete log and $\delta < 1/2$, we satisfy a stronger notion of functionality preservation for computationally bounded adversaries while still achieving information theoretic security.
2019
CRYPTO
The Fiat-Shamir transformation is a useful approach to building non-interactive arguments (of knowledge) in the random oracle model. Unfortunately, existing proof techniques are incapable of proving the security of Fiat-Shamir in the quantum setting. The problem stems from (1) the difficulty of quantum rewinding, and (2) the inability of current techniques to adaptively program random oracles in the quantum setting. In this work, we show how to overcome the limitations above in many settings. In particular, we give mild conditions under which Fiat-Shamir is secure in the quantum setting. As an application, we show that existing lattice signatures based on Fiat-Shamir are secure without any modifications.
2019
CRYPTO
The quantum random oracle model (QROM) has become the standard model in which to prove the post-quantum security of random-oracle-based constructions. Unfortunately, none of the known proof techniques allow the reduction to record information about the adversary’s queries, a crucial feature of many classical ROM proofs, including all proofs of indifferentiability for hash function domain extension.In this work, we give a new QROM proof technique that overcomes this “recording barrier”. We do so by giving a new “compressed oracle” which allows for efficient on-the-fly simulation of random oracles, roughly analogous to the usual classical simulation. We then use this new technique to give the first proof of quantum indifferentiability for the Merkle-Damgård domain extender for hash functions. We also give a proof of security for the Fujisaki-Okamoto transformation; previous proofs required modifying the scheme to include an additional hash term. Given the threat posed by quantum computers and the push toward quantum-resistant cryptosystems, our work represents an important tool for efficient post-quantum cryptosystems.
2019
CRYPTO
There is surprisingly little consensus on the precise role of the generator g in group-based assumptions such as DDH. Some works consider g to be a fixed part of the group description, while others take it to be random. We study this subtle distinction from a number of angles. In the generic group model, we demonstrate the plausibility of groups in which random-generator DDH (resp. CDH) is hard but fixed-generator DDH (resp. CDH) is easy. We observe that such groups have interesting cryptographic applications.We find that seemingly tight generic lower bounds for the Discrete-Log and CDH problems with preprocessing (Corrigan-Gibbs and Kogan, Eurocrypt 2018) are not tight in the sub-constant success probability regime if the generator is random. We resolve this by proving tight lower bounds for the random generator variants; our results formalize the intuition that using a random generator will reduce the effectiveness of preprocessing attacks.We observe that DDH-like assumptions in which exponents are drawn from low-entropy distributions are particularly sensitive to the fixed- vs. random-generator distinction. Most notably, we discover that the Strong Power DDH assumption of Komargodski and Yogev (Komargodski and Yogev, Eurocrypt 2018) used for non-malleable point obfuscation is in fact false precisely because it requires a fixed generator. In response, we formulate an alternative fixed-generator assumption that suffices for a new construction of non-malleable point obfuscation, and we prove the assumption holds in the generic group model. We also give a generic group proof for the security of fixed-generator, low-entropy DDH (Canetti, Crypto 1997).
2019
JOFC
We introduce the notion of an Extremely Lossy Function (ELF). An ELF is a family of functions with an image size that is tunable anywhere from injective to having a polynomial-sized image. Moreover, for any efficient adversary, for a sufficiently large polynomial r (necessarily chosen to be larger than the running time of the adversary), the adversary cannot distinguish the injective case from the case of image size r . We develop a handful of techniques for using ELFs, and show that such extreme lossiness is useful for instantiating random oracles in several settings. In particular, we show how to use ELFs to build secure point function obfuscation with auxiliary input, as well as polynomially many hardcore bits for any one-way function. Such applications were previously known from strong knowledge assumptions—for example, polynomially many hardcore bits were only known from differing inputs obfuscation, a notion whose plausibility has been seriously challenged. We also use ELFs to build a simple hash function with output intractability , a new notion we define that may be useful for generating common reference strings. Next, we give a construction of ELFs relying on the exponential hardness of the decisional Diffie–Hellman problem, which is plausible in elliptic curve groups. Combining with the applications above, our work gives several practical constructions relying on qualitatively different—and arguably better—assumptions than prior works.
2018
TCC
All known multilinear map candidates have suffered from a class of attacks known as “zeroizing” attacks, which render them unusable for many applications. We provide a new construction of polynomial-degree multilinear maps and show that our scheme is provably immune to zeroizing attacks under a strengthening of the Branching Program Un-Annihilatability Assumption (Garg et al., TCC 2016-B).Concretely, we build our scheme on top of the CLT13 multilinear maps (Coron et al., CRYPTO 2013). In order to justify the security of our new scheme, we devise a weak multilinear map model for CLT13 that captures zeroizing attacks and generalizations, reflecting all known classical polynomial-time attacks on CLT13. In our model, we show that our new multilinear map scheme achieves ideal security, meaning no known attacks apply to our scheme. Using our scheme, we give a new multiparty key agreement protocol that is several orders of magnitude more efficient that what was previously possible.We also demonstrate the general applicability of our model by showing that several existing obfuscation and order-revealing encryption schemes, when instantiated with CLT13 maps, are secure against known attacks. These are schemes that are actually being implemented for experimentation, but until our work had no rigorous justification for security.
2018
TCC
The GGH15 multilinear maps have served as the foundation for a number of cutting-edge cryptographic proposals. Unfortunately, many schemes built on GGH15 have been explicitly broken by so-called “zeroizing attacks,” which exploit leakage from honest zero-test queries. The precise settings in which zeroizing attacks are possible have remained unclear. Most notably, none of the current indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) candidates from GGH15 have any formal security guarantees against zeroizing attacks.In this work, we demonstrate that all known zeroizing attacks on GGH15 implicitly construct algebraic relations between the results of zero-testing and the encoded plaintext elements. We then propose a “GGH15 zeroizing model” as a new general framework which greatly generalizes known attacks.Our second contribution is to describe a new GGH15 variant, which we formally analyze in our GGH15 zeroizing model. We then construct a new iO candidate using our multilinear map, which we prove secure in the GGH15 zeroizing model. This implies resistance to all known zeroizing strategies. The proof relies on the Branching Program Un-Annihilatability (BPUA) Assumption of Garg et al. [TCC 16-B] (which is implied by PRFs in $\mathsf {NC}^1$ secure against $\mathsf {P}/\mathsf {poly}$) and the complexity-theoretic p-Bounded Speedup Hypothesis of Miles et al. [ePrint 14] (a strengthening of the Exponential Time Hypothesis).
2018
TCC
An Order-Revealing Encryption (ORE) scheme gives a public procedure by which two ciphertexts can be compared to reveal the order of their underlying plaintexts. The ideal security notion for ORE is that only the order is revealed—anything else, such as the distance between plaintexts, is hidden. The only known constructions of ORE achieving such ideal security are based on cryptographic multilinear maps and are currently too impractical for real-world applications.In this work, we give evidence that building ORE from weaker tools may be hard. Indeed, we show black-box separations between ORE and most symmetric-key primitives, as well as public key encryption and anything else implied by generic groups in a black-box way. Thus, any construction of ORE must either (1) achieve weaker notions of security, (2) be based on more complicated cryptographic tools, or (3) require non-black-box techniques. This suggests that any ORE achieving ideal security will likely be somewhat inefficient.Central to our proof is a proof of impossibility for something we call information theoretic ORE, which has connections to tournament graphs and a theorem by Erdös. This impossibility proof will be useful for proving other black box separations for ORE.
2018
ASIACRYPT
Order-revealing encryption (ORE) is a primitive for outsourcing encrypted databases which allows for efficiently performing range queries over encrypted data. Unfortunately, a series of works, starting with Naveed et al. (CCS 2015), have shown that when the adversary has a good estimate of the distribution of the data, ORE provides little protection. In this work, we consider the case that the database entries are drawn identically and independently from a distribution of known shape, but for which the mean and variance are not (and thus the attacks of Naveed et al. do not apply). We define a new notion of security for ORE, called parameter-hiding ORE, which maintains the secrecy of these parameters. We give a construction of ORE satisfying our new definition from bilinear maps.
2017
EUROCRYPT
2017
CRYPTO
2017
TCC
2016
EUROCRYPT
2016
EUROCRYPT
2016
CRYPTO
2016
CRYPTO
2016
TCC
2016
TCC
2016
TCC
2016
TCC
2016
ASIACRYPT
2016
TCC
2016
TCC
2015
EPRINT
2015
EPRINT
2015
EPRINT
2015
EPRINT
2015
EUROCRYPT
2014
CRYPTO
2014
CRYPTO
2014
EPRINT
2014
EPRINT
2014
EPRINT
2013
CRYPTO
2013
EUROCRYPT
2012
CRYPTO
2011
ASIACRYPT

Asiacrypt 2020
Asiacrypt 2019
Crypto 2018
Eurocrypt 2017
TCC 2017