On the Communication Complexity of Secure Computation

Information theoretically secure multi-party computation (MPC) is a central primitive of modern cryptography. However, relatively little is known about the communication complexity of this primitive. In this work, we develop powerful information theoretic tools to prove lower bounds on the communication complexity of MPC. We restrict ourselves to a 3-party setting in order to bring out the power of these tools without introducing too many complications. Our techniques include the use of a data processing inequality for residual information - i.e., the gap between mutual information and G\'acs-K\"orner common information, a new information inequality for 3-party protocols, and the idea of distribution switching by which lower bounds computed under certain worst-case scenarios can be shown to apply for the general case. Using these techniques we obtain tight bounds on communication complexity by MPC protocols for various interesting functions. In particular, we show concrete functions that have "communication-ideal" protocols, which achieve the minimum communication simultaneously on all links in the network. Also, we obtain the first explicit example of a function that incurs a higher communication cost than the input length in the secure computation model of Feige, Kilian and Naor (1994), who had shown that such functions exist. We also show that our communication bounds imply tight lower bounds on the amount of randomness required by MPC protocols for many interesting functions.Comment: 37 page

On the Communication Complexity of Secure Computation

Information theoretically secure multi-party computation (MPC) is a central primitive of modern cryptography. However, relatively little is known about the communication complexity of this primitive. In this work, we develop powerful information theoretic tools to prove lower bounds on the communication complexity of MPC. We restrict ourselves to a concrete setting involving 3-parties, in order to bring out the power of these tools without introducing too many complications. Our techniques include the use of a data processing inequality for {\em residual information} --- i.e., the gap between mutual information and Gács-Körner common information, a new {\em information inequality} for 3-party protocols, and the idea of {\em distribution switching} by which lower bounds computed under certain worst-case scenarios can be shown to apply for the general case. Using these techniques we obtain tight bounds on communication complexity by MPC protocols for various interesting functions. In particular, we show concrete functions that have ``communication-ideal\u27\u27 protocols, which achieve the minimum communication simultaneously on all links in the network. Also, we obtain the first {\em explicit} example of a function that incurs a higher communication cost than the input length in the secure computation model of Feige, Kilian and Naor \cite{FeigeKiNa94}, who had shown that such functions exist. We also show that our communication bounds imply tight lower bounds on the amount of randomness required by MPC protocols for many interesting functions

Explicit Lower Bounds for Communication Complexity of PSM for Concrete Functions

Private Simultaneous Messages (PSM) is a minimal model of secure computation, where the input players with shared randomness send messages to the output player simultaneously and only once. In this field, finding upper and lower bounds on communication complexity of PSM protocols is important, and in particular, identifying the optimal one where the upper and lower bounds coincide is the ultimate goal. However, up until now, functions for which the optimal communication complexity has been determined are few: An example of such a function is the two-input AND function where $(2\log_2 3)$-bit communication is optimal. In this paper, we provide new upper and lower bounds for several concrete functions. For lower bounds, we introduce a novel approach using combinatorial objects called abstract simplicial complexes to represent PSM protocols. Our method is suitable for obtaining non-asymptotic explicit lower bounds for concrete functions. By deriving lower bounds and constructing concrete protocols, we show that the optimal communication complexity for the equality and majority functions with three input bits are $3\log_2 3$ bits and $6$ bits, respectively. We also derive new lower bounds for the $n$-input AND function, three-valued comparison function, and multiplication over finite rings

On the Efficiency of Classical and Quantum Secure Function Evaluation

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

How to Securely Compute the Modulo-Two Sum of Binary Sources

In secure multiparty computation, mutually distrusting users in a network want to collaborate to compute functions of data which is distributed among the users. The users should not learn any additional information about the data of others than what they may infer from their own data and the functions they are computing. Previous works have mostly considered the worst case context (i.e., without assuming any distribution for the data); Lee and Abbe (2014) is a notable exception. Here, we study the average case (i.e., we work with a distribution on the data) where correctness and privacy is only desired asymptotically. For concreteness and simplicity, we consider a secure version of the function computation problem of K\"orner and Marton (1979) where two users observe a doubly symmetric binary source with parameter p and the third user wants to compute the XOR. We show that the amount of communication and randomness resources required depends on the level of correctness desired. When zero-error and perfect privacy are required, the results of Data et al. (2014) show that it can be achieved if and only if a total rate of 1 bit is communicated between every pair of users and private randomness at the rate of 1 is used up. In contrast, we show here that, if we only want the probability of error to vanish asymptotically in block length, it can be achieved by a lower rate (binary entropy of p) for all the links and for private randomness; this also guarantees perfect privacy. We also show that no smaller rates are possible even if privacy is only required asymptotically.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, extended version of submission to IEEE Information Theory Workshop, 201

A New Upperbound for the Oblivious Transfer Capacity of Discrete Memoryless Channels

We derive a new upper bound on the string oblivious transfer capacity of discrete memoryless channels. The main tool we use is the tension region of a pair of random variables introduced in Prabhakaran and Prabhakaran (2014) where it was used to derive upper bounds on rates of secure sampling in the source model. In this paper, we consider secure computation of string oblivious transfer in the channel model. Our bound is based on a monotonicity property of the tension region in the channel model. We show that our bound strictly improves upon the upper bound of Ahlswede and Csisz\'ar (2013).Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, extended version of submission to IEEE Information Theory Workshop, 201

Converses for Secret Key Agreement and Secure Computing

We consider information theoretic secret key agreement and secure function computation by multiple parties observing correlated data, with access to an interactive public communication channel. Our main result is an upper bound on the secret key length, which is derived using a reduction of binary hypothesis testing to multiparty secret key agreement. Building on this basic result, we derive new converses for multiparty secret key agreement. Furthermore, we derive converse results for the oblivious transfer problem and the bit commitment problem by relating them to secret key agreement. Finally, we derive a necessary condition for the feasibility of secure computation by trusted parties that seek to compute a function of their collective data, using an interactive public communication that by itself does not give away the value of the function. In many cases, we strengthen and improve upon previously known converse bounds. Our results are single-shot and use only the given joint distribution of the correlated observations. For the case when the correlated observations consist of independent and identically distributed (in time) sequences, we derive strong versions of previously known converses

On the Round Complexity of Randomized Byzantine Agreement

We prove lower bounds on the round complexity of randomized Byzantine agreement (BA) protocols, bounding the halting probability of such protocols after one and two rounds. In particular, we prove that: 1) BA protocols resilient against n/3 [resp., n/4] corruptions terminate (under attack) at the end of the first round with probability at most o(1) [resp., 1/2+ o(1)]. 2) BA protocols resilient against n/4 corruptions terminate at the end of the second round with probability at most 1-Theta(1). 3) For a large class of protocols (including all BA protocols used in practice) and under a plausible combinatorial conjecture, BA protocols resilient against n/3 [resp., n/4] corruptions terminate at the end of the second round with probability at most o(1) [resp., 1/2 + o(1)]. The above bounds hold even when the parties use a trusted setup phase, e.g., a public-key infrastructure (PKI). The third bound essentially matches the recent protocol of Micali (ITCS\u2717) that tolerates up to n/3 corruptions and terminates at the end of the third round with constant probability