Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2311.07829 · IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory

Quantum X-Secure T-Private Information Retrieval From MDS Coded Storage With Unresponsive and Byzantine Servers

Yuxiang Lu, Syed A. Jafar

Published Jan 1, 2025• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A communication-efficient protocol is introduced over a many-to-one quantum network for Q-E-B-MDS-X-TPIR, i.e., quantum private information retrieval with MDS-X-secure storage andT-private queries. The protocol is resilient to any set of up toEunresponsive servers (erased servers or stragglers) and any set of up toBByzantine servers. The underlying coding scheme incorporates an enhanced version of a Cross Subspace Alignment (CSA) code, namely a Modified CSA (MCSA) code, into the framework of CSS codes. The error-correcting capabilities of CSS codes are leveraged to encode the dimensions that carry desired computation results from the MCSA code into the error space of the CSS code, while the undesired interference terms are aligned into the stabilized code space. The challenge is to do this efficiently while also correcting quantum erasures and Byzantine errors. The protocol achieves superdense coding gain over comparable classical baselines for Q-E-B-MDS-X-TPIR, recovers as special cases the state of art results for various other quantum PIR settings previously studied in the literature, and paves the way for applications in quantum coded distributed computation, where CSA code structures are important for communication efficiency, while security and resilience to stragglers and Byzantine servers are critical.

DOI
10.1109/jsait.2025.3554625

Related papers

A Coding Scheme for Straggler Resilient Quantum X-Secure T-Private Information Retrieval

Yuxiang Lu, Syed A. Jafar

Building on recent constructions of Quantum Cross Subspace Alignment (QCSA) codes, this work develops a coding scheme for QEXSTPIR, i.e., classical private information retrieval with X -secure storage and$T$-private queries, over a quantum multiple access channel, that is resilient to any set of up to$E$erased servers (equivalently known as unresponsive servers, or stragglers). The scheme is accordingly labeled QECSA, with the ‘$\mathbf{E}$,indicating resilience to erased servers. The novelty of QECSA lies in achieving efficient E-straggler resilience on top of existing QCSA codes that already achieve X-secure storage, T- private queries, and distributed superdense coding gains for communication efficient decoding. The QECSA code structure may be broadly useful for problems such as quantum coded secure distributed computation, where security, straggler resilience, and distributed superdense coding gains are simultaneously required.

International Conference on Communications•Jun 9, 2024•4 citations

Quantum $X$-Secure $B$-Byzantine $T$-Colluding Private Information Retrieval

Mohamed W. Nomeir, Alptug Aytekin, Şennur Ulukuş

We consider the problems arising from the presence of Byzantine servers in a quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) setting. This is the first work to precisely define what the capabilities of Byzantine servers could be in a QPIR context. We show that quantum Byzantine servers have more capabilities than their classical counterparts due to the possibilities created by quantum encoding procedures. We focus on quantum Byzantine servers that can apply any reversible operation on their individual qudits. In this case, Byzantine servers can generate any error, i.e., this covers all possible single qudit operations that can be applied by Byzantine servers on their qudits. We design a scheme based on cross-subspace alignment (CSA) and we show that this scheme achieves superdense coding gain in some cases.

arXiv:2401.17252•IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW)•Nov 24, 2024•5 citations

Quantum Private Information Retrieval From Coded and Colluding Servers

Matteo Allaix, Lukas Holzbaur, Tefjol Pllaha +1 more

In the classical private information retrieval (PIR) setup, a user wants to retrieve a file from a database or a distributed storage system (DSS) without revealing the file identity to the servers holding the data. In the quantum PIR (QPIR) setting, a user privately retrieves a classical file by receiving quantum information from the servers. The QPIR problem has been treated by Song et al. in the case of replicated servers, both without collusion and with all but one servers colluding. In this paper, the QPIR setting is extended to account for maximum distance separable (MDS) coded servers. The proposed protocol works for any [n,k]-MDS code and t-collusion with t = n-k. Similarly to the previous cases, the rates achieved are better than those known or conjectured in the classical counterparts. Further, it is demonstrated how the protocol can adapted to achieve significantly higher retrieval rates from DSSs encoded with a locally repairable code (LRC) with disjoint repair groups, each of which is an MDS code.

arXiv:2001.05883•IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory•Aug 1, 2020•16 citations

Quantum Private Information Retrieval from MDS-coded and Colluding Servers

Matteo Allaix, Lukas Holzbaur, Tefjol Pllaha +1 more

In the classical private information retrieval (PIR) setup, a user wants to retrieve a file from a database or a distributed storage system (DSS) without revealing the file identity to the servers holding the data. In the quantum PIR (QPIR) setting, a user privately retrieves a classical file by downloading quantum systems from the servers. The QPIR problem has been treated by Song et al. in the case of replicated servers, both without collusion and with all but one servers colluding. In this paper, the QPIR setting is extended to account for maximum distance separable (MDS) coded servers. The proposed protocol works for any [n, k]-MDS code and t-collusion with t = n - k. Similarly to the previous cases, the rates achieved are better than those known or conjectured in the classical counterparts.

IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)•Jun 1, 2020•2 citations

Quantum X-Secure E-Eavesdropped T-Colluding Symmetric Private Information Retrieval

Alptug Aytekin, Mohamed W. Nomeir, Sajani Vithana +1 more

We consider both classical and quantum variations ofX-secure,E-eavesdropped andT-colluding symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR). This is the first work to study SPIR withX-security in classical or quantum variations. We first develop a scheme for classicalX-secure,E-eavesdropped andT-colluding SPIR (XSETSPIR) based on a modified version of cross subspace alignment (CSA), which achieves a rate of$R= 1 - \frac {X+\max (T,E)}{N}$. The modified scheme achieves the same rate as the scheme used forX-secure PIR with the extra benefit of symmetric privacy, i.e., user-privacy as well as database-privacy. Next, we extend this scheme to its quantum counterpart based on theN-sum box abstraction. This is the first work to consider the presence of eavesdroppers in quantum private information retrieval (QPIR). In the quantum variation, the eavesdroppers have better access to information over the quantum channel compared to the classical channel due to the over-the-air decodability. To that end, we develop two different schemes for quantumX-secure,E-eavesdropped andT-colluding SPIR (QXSETSPIR) with secure over-the-air decoding. The first scheme achieves the highest possible super-dense coding gain, i.e.,$R_{Q} = \min \left \{{{ 1, 2\left ({{1-\frac {X+\max (T,E)}{N}}}\right)}}\right \}$, which requires additional uploads from the user. The second scheme on the other hand requires no extra uploads. However, it does not achieve the super-dense coding gain in some cases based on the relation between the number of eavesdropped links and the number of interference terms. The second scheme is based on the idea that there exist some special entanglement states that can be used to hide the contents of the user-required messages from the eavesdroppers using the interference symbols.

IEEE Transactions on Information Theory•Mar 17, 2025•2 citations

Quantum Private Information Retrieval from Coded Storage Systems

Matteo Allaix

In the era of extensive data growth, robust and efficient mechanisms are needed to store and manage vast amounts of digital information, such as Data Storage Systems (DSSs). Concurrently, privacy concerns have arisen, leading to the development of techniques like Private Information Retrieval (PIR) to enable data access while preserving privacy. A PIR protocol allows users to retrieve information from a database without revealing the specifics of their query or the data they are accessing. With the advent of quantum computing, researchers have explored the potential of using quantum systems to enhance privacy in information retrieval. In a Quantum Private Information Retrieval (QPIR) protocol, a user can retrieve information from a database by downloading quantum systems from multiple servers, while ensuring that the servers remain oblivious to the specific information being accessed. This scenario offers a unique advantage by leveraging the inherent properties of quantum systems to provide enhanced privacy guarantees and improved communication rates compared to classical PIR protocols. In this thesis we consider the QPIR setting where the queries and the coded storage systems are classical, while the responses from the servers are quantum. This problem was treated by Song et al. for replicated storage and different collusion patterns. This thesis aims to develop QPIR protocols for coded storage by combining known classical PIR protocols with quantum communication algorithms, achieving enhanced privacy and communication costs. We consider different storage codes and robustness assumptions, and we prove that the achieved communication cost is always lower than the classical counterparts.

arXiv:2312.07570•Dec 10, 2023•0 citations
A communication-efficient protocol is introduced over a many-to-one quantum network for Q-E-B-MDS-X-TPIR, i.e., quantum private information retrieval with MDS-X-secure storage andT-private queries. The protocol is resilient to any set of up toEunresponsive servers (erased servers or stragglers) and any set of up toBByzantine servers. The underlying coding scheme incorporates an enhanced version of a Cross Subspace Alignment (CSA) code, namely a Modified CSA (MCSA) code, into the framework of CSS codes. The error-correcting capabilities of CSS codes are leveraged to encode the dimensions that carry desired computation results from the MCSA code into the error space of the CSS code, while the undesired interference terms are aligned into the stabilized code space. The challenge is to do this efficiently while also correcting quantum erasures and Byzantine errors. The protocol achieves superdense coding gain over comparable classical baselines for Q-E-B-MDS-X-TPIR, recovers as special cases the state of art results for various other quantum PIR settings previously studied in the literature, and paves the way for applications in quantum coded distributed computation, where CSA code structures are important for communication efficiency, while security and resilience to stragglers and Byzantine servers are critical.
Building on recent constructions of Quantum Cross Subspace Alignment (QCSA) codes, this work develops a coding scheme for QEXSTPIR, i.e., classical private information retrieval with X -secure storage andTTT-private queries, over a quantum multiple access channel, that is resilient to any set of up toEEEerased servers (equivalently known as unresponsive servers, or stragglers). The scheme is accordingly labeled QECSA, with the ‘E\mathbf{E}E,indicating resilience to erased servers. The novelty of QECSA lies in achieving efficient E-straggler resilience on top of existing QCSA codes that already achieve X-secure storage, T- private queries, and distributed superdense coding gains for communication efficient decoding. The QECSA code structure may be broadly useful for problems such as quantum coded secure distributed computation, where security, straggler resilience, and distributed superdense coding gains are simultaneously required.
Quantum XXX-Secure BBB-Byzantine TTT-Colluding Private Information Retrieval
We consider the problems arising from the presence of Byzantine servers in a quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) setting. This is the first work to precisely define what the capabilities of Byzantine servers could be in a QPIR context. We show that quantum Byzantine servers have more capabilities than their classical counterparts due to the possibilities created by quantum encoding procedures. We focus on quantum Byzantine servers that can apply any reversible operation on their individual qudits. In this case, Byzantine servers can generate any error, i.e., this covers all possible single qudit operations that can be applied by Byzantine servers on their qudits. We design a scheme based on cross-subspace alignment (CSA) and we show that this scheme achieves superdense coding gain in some cases.
In the classical private information retrieval (PIR) setup, a user wants to retrieve a file from a database or a distributed storage system (DSS) without revealing the file identity to the servers holding the data. In the quantum PIR (QPIR) setting, a user privately retrieves a classical file by receiving quantum information from the servers. The QPIR problem has been treated by Song et al. in the case of replicated servers, both without collusion and with all but one servers colluding. In this paper, the QPIR setting is extended to account for maximum distance separable (MDS) coded servers. The proposed protocol works for any [n,k]-MDS code and t-collusion with t = n-k. Similarly to the previous cases, the rates achieved are better than those known or conjectured in the classical counterparts. Further, it is demonstrated how the protocol can adapted to achieve significantly higher retrieval rates from DSSs encoded with a locally repairable code (LRC) with disjoint repair groups, each of which is an MDS code.
In the classical private information retrieval (PIR) setup, a user wants to retrieve a file from a database or a distributed storage system (DSS) without revealing the file identity to the servers holding the data. In the quantum PIR (QPIR) setting, a user privately retrieves a classical file by downloading quantum systems from the servers. The QPIR problem has been treated by Song et al. in the case of replicated servers, both without collusion and with all but one servers colluding. In this paper, the QPIR setting is extended to account for maximum distance separable (MDS) coded servers. The proposed protocol works for any [n, k]-MDS code and t-collusion with t = n - k. Similarly to the previous cases, the rates achieved are better than those known or conjectured in the classical counterparts.
We consider both classical and quantum variations ofX-secure,E-eavesdropped andT-colluding symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR). This is the first work to study SPIR withX-security in classical or quantum variations. We first develop a scheme for classicalX-secure,E-eavesdropped andT-colluding SPIR (XSETSPIR) based on a modified version of cross subspace alignment (CSA), which achieves a rate ofR=1−X+max⁡(T,E)NR= 1 - \frac {X+\max (T,E)}{N}R=1−NX+max(T,E)​. The modified scheme achieves the same rate as the scheme used forX-secure PIR with the extra benefit of symmetric privacy, i.e., user-privacy as well as database-privacy. Next, we extend this scheme to its quantum counterpart based on theN-sum box abstraction. This is the first work to consider the presence of eavesdroppers in quantum private information retrieval (QPIR). In the quantum variation, the eavesdroppers have better access to information over the quantum channel compared to the classical channel due to the over-the-air decodability. To that end, we develop two different schemes for quantumX-secure,E-eavesdropped andT-colluding SPIR (QXSETSPIR) with secure over-the-air decoding. The first scheme achieves the highest possible super-dense coding gain, i.e.,RQ=min⁡{1,2(1−X+max⁡(T,E)N)}R_{Q} = \min \left \{{{ 1, 2\left ({{1-\frac {X+\max (T,E)}{N}}}\right)}}\right \}RQ​=min{1,2(1−NX+max(T,E)​)}, which requires additional uploads from the user. The second scheme on the other hand requires no extra uploads. However, it does not achieve the super-dense coding gain in some cases based on the relation between the number of eavesdropped links and the number of interference terms. The second scheme is based on the idea that there exist some special entanglement states that can be used to hide the contents of the user-required messages from the eavesdroppers using the interference symbols.
In the era of extensive data growth, robust and efficient mechanisms are needed to store and manage vast amounts of digital information, such as Data Storage Systems (DSSs). Concurrently, privacy concerns have arisen, leading to the development of techniques like Private Information Retrieval (PIR) to enable data access while preserving privacy. A PIR protocol allows users to retrieve information from a database without revealing the specifics of their query or the data they are accessing. With the advent of quantum computing, researchers have explored the potential of using quantum systems to enhance privacy in information retrieval. In a Quantum Private Information Retrieval (QPIR) protocol, a user can retrieve information from a database by downloading quantum systems from multiple servers, while ensuring that the servers remain oblivious to the specific information being accessed. This scenario offers a unique advantage by leveraging the inherent properties of quantum systems to provide enhanced privacy guarantees and improved communication rates compared to classical PIR protocols. In this thesis we consider the QPIR setting where the queries and the coded storage systems are classical, while the responses from the servers are quantum. This problem was treated by Song et al. for replicated storage and different collusion patterns. This thesis aims to develop QPIR protocols for coded storage by combining known classical PIR protocols with quantum communication algorithms, achieving enhanced privacy and communication costs. We consider different storage codes and robustness assumptions, and we prove that the achieved communication cost is always lower than the classical counterparts.