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

1 On the Efficiency of Classical and Quantum Secure Function Evaluation

Severin Winkler

Published Aug 17, 2016• 6 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We provide bounds on the efficiency of secure one-sided output two-party computation of arbitrary finite functions from trusted distributed randomness in the statistical case. From these results we derive bounds on the efficiency of protocols that use different variants of OT as a black-box. When applied to implementations of OT, these bounds generalize most known results to the statistical case. Our results hold in particular for transformations between a finite number of primitives and for any error. In the second part we study the efficiency of quantum protocols implementing OT. While most classical lower bounds for perfectly secure reductions of OT to distributed randomness still hold in the quantum setting, we present a statistically secure protocol that violates these bounds by an arbitrarily large factor. We then prove a weaker lower bound that does hold in the statistical quantum setting and implies that even quantum protocols cannot extend OT. Finally, we present two lower bounds for reductions of OT to commitments and a protocol based on string commitments that is optimal with respect to both of these bounds.

Related papers

On the Efficiency of Classical and Quantum Secure Function Evaluation

Severin Winkler, Jürg Wullschleger

We provide bounds on the efficiency of secure one-sided output two-party computation of arbitrary finite functions from trusted distributed randomness in the statistical case. From these results, we derive bounds on the efficiency of protocols that use different variants of oblivious transfer (OT) as a black box. When applied to implementations of OT, these bounds generalize most known results to the statistical case. Our results hold in particular for transformations between a finite number of primitives and for any error. In the second part, we study the efficiency of quantum protocols implementing OT. While most classical lower bounds for perfectly secure reductions of OT to distributed randomness still hold in the quantum setting, we present a statistically secure protocol that violates these bounds by an arbitrarily large factor. We then prove a weaker lower bound that does hold in the statistical quantum setting and implies that even quantum protocols cannot extend OT. Finally, we present two lower bounds for reductions of OT to commitments and a protocol based on string commitments that is optimal with respect to both of these bounds.

arXiv:1205.5136•IEEE Transactions on Information Theory•Mar 31, 2014•5 citations

Lower Bounds for Quantum Secure Function Evaluation Reductions

Esther Hänggi, Severin Winkler

One-sided output secure function evaluation is a cryptographic primitive where the two mutually distrustful players, Alice and Bob, both have a private input to a bivariate function. Bob obtains the value of the function for the given inputs, while Alice receives no output. It is known that this primitive cannot be securely implemented if the two players only have access to noiseless classical and quantum communication. In this work, we first show that Bob can extract the function values for all his possible inputs from any implementation of a non-trivial function that is correct and preserves the privacy of Bob's input. Our result holds in the non-asymptotic setting where the players have finite resources and the error is a constant. Then we consider protocols for secure function evaluation in a setup where the two players have access to trusted distributed randomness as a resource. Building upon the first result, we prove a bound on the efficiency of such cryptographic reductions for any non-trivial function in terms of the conditional entropies of the trusted randomness. From this result, we can derive lower bounds on the number of instances of different variants of OT needed to securely implement a given function.

arXiv:2405.12121•May 20, 2024•0 citations

Expressiveness of definitions and efficiency of constructions in computational cryptography

Virgil D. Gligor, Jonathan I. Katz, Omer Horvitz

The computational treatment of cryptography, and indeed any scientific treatment of a problem, is marked by its definitional side and by it constructive side. Results in this thesis better our understanding of both: on one side, they characterize the extent to which computational definitions capture the security of the basic task of symmetric encryption; on the other, they provide explicit bounds on the efficiency of commitment and secure two-party computation constructions. Specifically: (1) We relate the formal and computational treatments of symmetric encryption, obtaining a precise characterization of computational schemes whose computational semantics imply their formal semantics. We prove that this characterization is strictly weaker than previously-identified notions, and show how it may be realized in a simpler, more efficient manner. (2) We provide lower-bounds on the number of times a one-way permutation needs to be invoked (as a black-box) in order to construct statistically-binding commitments. Our bounds are tight for the case of perfectly-binding schemes. (3) We show that the secure computation of any two-party functionality can be performed in an optimal two rounds of communication even in a setting that accounts for concurrent execution with other protocols (i.e., the Universal Composability framework). Here, we rely on the assumption that parties have access to a common reference string; some sort of setup is known to be necessary.

•Jan 1, 2007•1 citation

Secure Arithmetic Computation with No Honest Majority.

Yuval Ishai, Manoj Prabhakaran, Amit Sahai

We study the complexity of securely evaluating arithmetic circuits over finite rings. This question is motivated by natural secure computation tasks. Focusing mainly on the case of two-party protocols with security against malicious parties, our main goals are to: (1) only make black-box calls to the ring operations and standard cryptographic primitives, and (2) minimize the number of such black-box calls as well as the communication overhead. We present several solutions which differ in their efficiency, generality, and underlying intractability assumptions. These include: • An unconditionally secure protocol in the OT-hybrid model which makes a black-box use of an arbitrary ring R, but where the number of ring operations grows linearly with (an upper bound on) log |R|. • Computationally secure protocols in the OT-hybrid model which make a black-box use of an underlying ring, and in which the number of ring operations does not grow with the ring size. The protocols rely on variants of previous intractability assumptions related to linear codes. In the most efficient instance of these protocols, applied to a suitable class of fields, the (amortized) communication cost is a constant number of field elements per multiplication gate and the computational cost is dominated by O(log k) field operations per gate, where k is a security parameter. These results extend a previous approach of Naor and Pinkas for secure polynomial evaluation (SIAM J. Comput., 35(5), 2006). • A protocol for the rings Zm = Z/mZ which only makes a black-box use of a homomorphic encryption scheme. When m is prime, the (amortized) number of calls to the encryption scheme for each gate of the circuit is constant. All of our protocols are in fact UC-secure in the OT-hybrid model and can be generalized to multiparty computation with an arbitrary number of malicious parties.

•Jan 1, 2008•0 citations

Secure Arithmetic Computation with No Honest Majority

Yuval Ishai, Manoj Prabhakaran, Amit Sahai

We study the complexity of securely evaluating arithmetic circuits over finite rings. This question is motivated by natural secure computation tasks. Focusing mainly on the case of two-party protocols with security against malicious parties, our main goals are to: (1) only make black-box calls to the ring operations and standard cryptographic primitives, and (2) minimize the number of such black-box calls as well as the communication overhead. We present several solutions which differ in their efficiency, generality, and underlying intractability assumptions. These include: 1. An unconditionally secure protocol in the OT-hybrid model which makes a black-box use of an arbitrary ring $R$, but where the number of ring operations grows linearly with (an upper bound on) $\log|R|$. 2. Computationally secure protocols in the OT-hybrid model which make a black-box use of an underlying ring, and in which the number of ring operations does not grow with the ring size. These results extend a previous approach of Naor and Pinkas for secure polynomial evaluation (SIAM J. Comput., 35(5), 2006). 3. A protocol for the rings $\mathbb{Z}_m=\mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z}$ which only makes a black-box use of a homomorphic encryption scheme. When $m$ is prime, the (amortized) number of calls to the encryption scheme for each gate of the circuit is constant. All of our protocols are in fact UC-secure in the OT-hybrid model and can be generalized to multiparty computation with an arbitrary number of malicious parties.

arXiv:0811.0475•Nov 4, 2008•0 citations

A Constant Lower Bound for Any Quantum Protocol for Secure Function Evaluation

Osborn, Sarah A., Jamie Sikora

Secure function evaluation is a two-party cryptographic primitive where Bob computes a function of Alice's and his respective inputs, and both hope to keep their inputs private from the other party. It has been proven that perfect (or near perfect) security is impossible, even for quantum protocols. We generalize this no-go result by exhibiting a constant lower bound on the cheating probabilities for any quantum protocol for secure function evaluation, and present many applications from oblivious transfer to the millionaire's problem. Constant lower bounds are of practical interest since they imply the impossibility to arbitrarily amplify the security of quantum protocols by any means.

arXiv:2203.08268•Leibniz international proceedings in informatics•Jan 1, 2022•1 citation
We provide bounds on the efficiency of secure one-sided output two-party computation of arbitrary finite functions from trusted distributed randomness in the statistical case. From these results we derive bounds on the efficiency of protocols that use different variants of OT as a black-box. When applied to implementations of OT, these bounds generalize most known results to the statistical case. Our results hold in particular for transformations between a finite number of primitives and for any error. In the second part we study the efficiency of quantum protocols implementing OT. While most classical lower bounds for perfectly secure reductions of OT to distributed randomness still hold in the quantum setting, we present a statistically secure protocol that violates these bounds by an arbitrarily large factor. We then prove a weaker lower bound that does hold in the statistical quantum setting and implies that even quantum protocols cannot extend OT. Finally, we present two lower bounds for reductions of OT to commitments and a protocol based on string commitments that is optimal with respect to both of these bounds.
We provide bounds on the efficiency of secure one-sided output two-party computation of arbitrary finite functions from trusted distributed randomness in the statistical case. From these results, we derive bounds on the efficiency of protocols that use different variants of oblivious transfer (OT) as a black box. When applied to implementations of OT, these bounds generalize most known results to the statistical case. Our results hold in particular for transformations between a finite number of primitives and for any error. In the second part, we study the efficiency of quantum protocols implementing OT. While most classical lower bounds for perfectly secure reductions of OT to distributed randomness still hold in the quantum setting, we present a statistically secure protocol that violates these bounds by an arbitrarily large factor. We then prove a weaker lower bound that does hold in the statistical quantum setting and implies that even quantum protocols cannot extend OT. Finally, we present two lower bounds for reductions of OT to commitments and a protocol based on string commitments that is optimal with respect to both of these bounds.
One-sided output secure function evaluation is a cryptographic primitive where the two mutually distrustful players, Alice and Bob, both have a private input to a bivariate function. Bob obtains the value of the function for the given inputs, while Alice receives no output. It is known that this primitive cannot be securely implemented if the two players only have access to noiseless classical and quantum communication. In this work, we first show that Bob can extract the function values for all his possible inputs from any implementation of a non-trivial function that is correct and preserves the privacy of Bob's input. Our result holds in the non-asymptotic setting where the players have finite resources and the error is a constant. Then we consider protocols for secure function evaluation in a setup where the two players have access to trusted distributed randomness as a resource. Building upon the first result, we prove a bound on the efficiency of such cryptographic reductions for any non-trivial function in terms of the conditional entropies of the trusted randomness. From this result, we can derive lower bounds on the number of instances of different variants of OT needed to securely implement a given function.
The computational treatment of cryptography, and indeed any scientific treatment of a problem, is marked by its definitional side and by it constructive side. Results in this thesis better our understanding of both: on one side, they characterize the extent to which computational definitions capture the security of the basic task of symmetric encryption; on the other, they provide explicit bounds on the efficiency of commitment and secure two-party computation constructions. Specifically: (1) We relate the formal and computational treatments of symmetric encryption, obtaining a precise characterization of computational schemes whose computational semantics imply their formal semantics. We prove that this characterization is strictly weaker than previously-identified notions, and show how it may be realized in a simpler, more efficient manner. (2) We provide lower-bounds on the number of times a one-way permutation needs to be invoked (as a black-box) in order to construct statistically-binding commitments. Our bounds are tight for the case of perfectly-binding schemes. (3) We show that the secure computation of any two-party functionality can be performed in an optimal two rounds of communication even in a setting that accounts for concurrent execution with other protocols (i.e., the Universal Composability framework). Here, we rely on the assumption that parties have access to a common reference string; some sort of setup is known to be necessary.
We study the complexity of securely evaluating arithmetic circuits over finite rings. This question is motivated by natural secure computation tasks. Focusing mainly on the case of two-party protocols with security against malicious parties, our main goals are to: (1) only make black-box calls to the ring operations and standard cryptographic primitives, and (2) minimize the number of such black-box calls as well as the communication overhead. We present several solutions which differ in their efficiency, generality, and underlying intractability assumptions. These include: • An unconditionally secure protocol in the OT-hybrid model which makes a black-box use of an arbitrary ring R, but where the number of ring operations grows linearly with (an upper bound on) log |R|. • Computationally secure protocols in the OT-hybrid model which make a black-box use of an underlying ring, and in which the number of ring operations does not grow with the ring size. The protocols rely on variants of previous intractability assumptions related to linear codes. In the most efficient instance of these protocols, applied to a suitable class of fields, the (amortized) communication cost is a constant number of field elements per multiplication gate and the computational cost is dominated by O(log k) field operations per gate, where k is a security parameter. These results extend a previous approach of Naor and Pinkas for secure polynomial evaluation (SIAM J. Comput., 35(5), 2006). • A protocol for the rings Zm = Z/mZ which only makes a black-box use of a homomorphic encryption scheme. When m is prime, the (amortized) number of calls to the encryption scheme for each gate of the circuit is constant. All of our protocols are in fact UC-secure in the OT-hybrid model and can be generalized to multiparty computation with an arbitrary number of malicious parties.
We study the complexity of securely evaluating arithmetic circuits over finite rings. This question is motivated by natural secure computation tasks. Focusing mainly on the case of two-party protocols with security against malicious parties, our main goals are to: (1) only make black-box calls to the ring operations and standard cryptographic primitives, and (2) minimize the number of such black-box calls as well as the communication overhead. We present several solutions which differ in their efficiency, generality, and underlying intractability assumptions. These include: 1. An unconditionally secure protocol in the OT-hybrid model which makes a black-box use of an arbitrary ring RRR, but where the number of ring operations grows linearly with (an upper bound on) log⁡∣R∣\log|R|log∣R∣. 2. Computationally secure protocols in the OT-hybrid model which make a black-box use of an underlying ring, and in which the number of ring operations does not grow with the ring size. These results extend a previous approach of Naor and Pinkas for secure polynomial evaluation (SIAM J. Comput., 35(5), 2006). 3. A protocol for the rings Zm=Z/mZ\mathbb{Z}_m=\mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z}Zm​=Z/mZ which only makes a black-box use of a homomorphic encryption scheme. When mmm is prime, the (amortized) number of calls to the encryption scheme for each gate of the circuit is constant. All of our protocols are in fact UC-secure in the OT-hybrid model and can be generalized to multiparty computation with an arbitrary number of malicious parties.
Secure function evaluation is a two-party cryptographic primitive where Bob computes a function of Alice's and his respective inputs, and both hope to keep their inputs private from the other party. It has been proven that perfect (or near perfect) security is impossible, even for quantum protocols. We generalize this no-go result by exhibiting a constant lower bound on the cheating probabilities for any quantum protocol for secure function evaluation, and present many applications from oblivious transfer to the millionaire's problem. Constant lower bounds are of practical interest since they imply the impossibility to arbitrarily amplify the security of quantum protocols by any means.