An important open question in quantum cryptography is the construction of publicly-verifiable NIZKs for QMA. Classically, one can construct NIZKs for NP in the random oracle model (and sometimes in the standard model) by compiling an honest-verifier ZK (HVZK)
Σ-protocol for NP using the Fiat-Shamir transformation. Broadbent and Grilo introduced a quantum analog of a
Σ-protocol (which they call a
Ξ-protocol) in which the prover's first message is quantum, and show that HVZK
Ξ-protocols exist for QMA. However, it is not clear how to compile such protocols into NIZKs in the (Q)ROM, because the Fiat-Shamir transformation seems to be incompatible with quantum messages. In this work we give formal evidence that this is indeed the case: we show that if generic "Fiat-Shamir-like" compilers for quantum protocols exist in the QROM (with small completeness and soundness error) then QMA = BQP.
The Fiat-Shamir transformation is a famous technique to turn identification schemes into signature schemes. The derived scheme is provably secure in the random-oracle model against classical adversaries. Still, the technique has also been suggested to be used in connection with quantum-immune identification schemes, in order to get quantum-immune signature schemes. However, a recent paper by Boneh et al. (Asiacrypt 2011) has raised the issue that results in the random-oracle model may not be immediately applicable to quantum adversaries, because such adversaries should be allowed to query the random oracle in superposition. It has been unclear if the Fiat-Shamir technique is still secure in this quantum oracle model (QROM). Here, we discuss that giving proofs for the Fiat-Shamir transformation in the QROM is presumably hard. We show that there cannot be black-box extractors, as long as the underlying quantum-immune identification scheme is secure against active adversaries and the first message of the prover is independent of its witness. Most schemes are of this type. We then discuss that for some schemes one may be able to resurrect the Fiat-Shamir result in the QROM by modifying the underlying protocol first. We discuss in particular a version of the Lyubashevsky scheme which is provably secure in the QROM.
Applying the Fiat-Shamir transform on identification schemes is one of the main ways of constructing signature schemes. While the classical security of this transformation is well understood, it is only very recently that generic results for the quantum case have been proposed [DFMS19,LZ19]. These results are asymptotic and therefore can't be used to derive the concrete security of these signature schemes without a significant loss in parameters. In this paper, we show that if we start from a commit-and-open identification scheme, where the prover first commits to several strings and then as a second message opens a subset of them depending on the verifier's message, then there is a tight quantum reduction for the the Fiat-Shamir transform to special soundness notions. Our work applies to most 3 round schemes of this form and can be used immediately to derive quantum concrete security of signature schemes. We apply our techniques to several identification schemes that lead to signature schemes such as Stern's identification scheme based on coding problems, the [KTX08] identification scheme based on lattice problems, the [SSH11] identification schemes based on multivariate problems, closely related to the NIST candidate MQDSS, and the PICNIC scheme based on multiparty computing problems, which is also a NIST candidate.