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arXiv:1703.00207

A Quantum-Classical Scheme towards Quantum Functional Encryption

Aditya Ahuja

Published Mar 1, 2017• 0 citations
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Abstract

Quantum encryption is a well studied problem for both classical and quantum information. However, little is known about quantum encryption schemes which enable the user, under different keys, to learn different functions of the plaintext, given the ciphertext. In this paper, we give a novel one-bit secret-key quantum encryption scheme, a classical extension of which allows different key holders to learn different length subsequences of the plaintext from the ciphertext. We prove our quantum-classical scheme secure under the notions of quantum semantic security, quantum entropic indistinguishability, and recent security definitions from the field of functional encryption.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1703.00207

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Quantum encryption is a well studied problem for both classical and quantum information. However, little is known about quantum encryption schemes which enable the user, under different keys, to learn different functions of the plaintext, given the ciphertext. In this paper, we give a novel one-bit secret-key quantum encryption scheme, a classical extension of which allows different key holders to learn different length subsequences of the plaintext from the ciphertext. We prove our quantum-classical scheme secure under the notions of quantum semantic security, quantum entropic indistinguishability, and recent security definitions from the field of functional encryption.
In a functional encryption (FE) scheme, a user that holds a ciphertext and a function-key can learn the result of applying the function to the plaintext message. Security requires that the user does not learn anything beyond the function evaluation. We extend this notion to the quantum setting by providing definitions and a construction for a quantum functional encryption (QFE) scheme which allows for the evaluation of polynomially-sized circuits on arbitrary quantum messages. Our construction is built upon quantum garbled circuits [BY20]. We also investigate the relationship of QFE to the seemingly unrelated notion of unclonable encryption (UE) and find that any QFE scheme universally achieves the property of unclonable functional encryption (UFE). In particular we assume the existence of an unclonable encryption scheme with quantum decryption keys which was recently constructed by [AKY24]. Our UFE guarantees that two parties cannot simultaneously recover the correct function outputs using two independently sampled function secret keys. As an application we give the first construction for public-key UE with variable decryption keys. Lastly, we establish a connection between quantum indistinguishability obfuscation (qiO) and quantum functional encryption (QFE); showing that any multi-input indistinguishability-secure quantum functional encryption scheme unconditionally implies the existence of qiO.
In a functional encryption (FE) scheme, a user that holds a ciphertext and a function key can learn the result of applying the function to the plaintext message. Security requires that the user does not learn anything beyond the function evaluation. We extend this notion to the quantum setting by providing definitions and a construction for a quantum functional encryption (QFE) scheme which allows for the evaluation of polynomialy-sized circuits on arbitrary quantum messages. Our construction is built upon quantum garbled circuits [BY22]. We also investigate the relationship of QFE to the seemingly unrelated notion of unclonable encryption (UE) and find that any QFE scheme universally achieves the property of unclonable functional encryption (UFE). In particular we assume the existence of an unclonable encryption scheme with quantum decryption keys which was recently constructed by [AKY24]. Our UFE guarantees that two parties cannot simultaneously recover the correct function outputs using two independently sampled function secret keys. As an application we give the first construction for public-key UE with variable decryption keys. Lastly, we establish a connection between quantum indistinguishability obfuscation (qiO) and quantum functional encryption (QFE); Showing that any multi-input indistinguishability-secure quantum functional encryption scheme unconditionally implies the existence of qiO.
In the context of classical information, every message is composed of 0s and 1s; these messages can generally be copied at will. However, when quantum phenomena are used to model information, this guarantee no longer exists. This difference gives rise to a range of cryptographic possibilities when one considers encoding certain messages as quantum information. In our case, we analyze a potential benefit of encoding part of an encryption scheme’s ciphertext as quantum information. We call this type of ciphertext a quantum ciphertext. In particular, quantum ciphertexts are useful when one wants to be able to prove the deletion of the plaintext underlying a ciphertext. Since classical ciphertexts can be copied, clearly such feat is impossible using classical information alone. However, we show that quantum encodings allow such certified deletion. More precisely, we show that it is possible to encrypt classical data into a quantum ciphertext such that the recipient of the ciphertext can produce a classical string which proves to the originator that the recipient has relinquished any chance of recovering the plaintext, should the decryption key be revealed. Our scheme is feasible with current quantum technology: the honest parties only require quantum devices for single-qubit preparation and measurements, and the scheme is robust against noise in these devices. Furthermore, we provide a proof of security which requires only a finite amount of communication, and which therefore avoids the common technique of relying on the analysis of an asymptotic case.
We consider the scenario where Alice wants to send a secret (classical) nnn-bit message to Bob using a classical key, and where only one-way transmission from Alice to Bob is possible. In this case, quantum communication cannot help to obtain perfect secrecy with key length smaller then nnn. We study the question of whether there might still be fundamental differences between the case where quantum as opposed to classical communication is used. In this direction, we show that there exist ciphers with perfect security producing quantum ciphertext where, even if an adversary knows the plaintext and applies an optimal measurement on the ciphertext, his Shannon uncertainty about the key used is almost maximal. This is in contrast to the classical case where the adversary always learns nnn bits of information on the key in a known plaintext attack. We also show that there is a limit to how different the classical and quantum cases can be: the most probable key, given matching plain- and ciphertexts, has the same probability in both the quantum and the classical cases. We suggest an application of our results in the case where only a short secret key is available and the message is much longer.
We investigate the definition of security for encryption scheme in quantum context. We systematically define the indistinguishability and semantic security for quantum public-key and private-key encryption schemes, and for computational security, physical security and information-theoretic security. Based on our definition, we present a necessary and sufficient condition that leads to information-theoretic indistinguishability for quantum encryption scheme. The equivalence between the indistinguishability and semantic security of quantum encryption scheme is also proved.
We initiate the formal study of functional encryption by giving precise definitions of the concept and its security. Roughly speaking, functional encryption supports restricted secret keys that enable a key holder to learn a specific function of encrypted data, but learn nothing else about the data. For example, given an encrypted program the secret key may enable the key holder to learn the output of the program on a specific input without learning anything else about the program. We show that defining security for functional encryption is non-trivial. First, we show that a natural game-based definition is inadequate for some functionalities. We then present a natural simulation-based definition and show that it (provably) cannot be satisfied in the standard model, but can be satisfied in the random oracle model. We show how to map many existing concepts to our formalization of functional encryption and conclude with several interesting open problems in this young area.