57,519 research outputs found
Guessing with a Bit of Help
What is the value of a single bit to a guesser? We study this problem in a
setup where Alice wishes to guess an i.i.d. random vector, and can procure one
bit of information from Bob, who observes this vector through a memoryless
channel. We are interested in the guessing efficiency, which we define as the
best possible multiplicative reduction in Alice's guessing-moments obtainable
by observing Bob's bit. For the case of a uniform binary vector observed
through a binary symmetric channel, we provide two lower bounds on the guessing
efficiency by analyzing the performance of the Dictator and Majority functions,
and two upper bounds via maximum entropy and Fourier-analytic /
hypercontractivity arguments. We then extend our maximum entropy argument to
give a lower bound on the guessing efficiency for a general channel with a
binary uniform input, via the strong data-processing inequality constant of the
reverse channel. We compute this bound for the binary erasure channel, and
conjecture that Greedy Dictator functions achieve the guessing efficiency
Quantifying pervasive authentication: the case of the Hancke-Kuhn protocol
As mobile devices pervade physical space, the familiar authentication
patterns are becoming insufficient: besides entity authentication, many
applications require, e.g., location authentication. Many interesting protocols
have been proposed and implemented to provide such strengthened forms of
authentication, but there are very few proofs that such protocols satisfy the
required security properties. The logical formalisms, devised for reasoning
about security protocols on standard computer networks, turn out to be
difficult to adapt for reasoning about hybrid protocols, used in pervasive and
heterogenous networks.
We refine the Dolev-Yao-style algebraic method for protocol analysis by a
probabilistic model of guessing, needed to analyze protocols that mix weak
cryptography with physical properties of nonstandard communication channels.
Applying this model, we provide a precise security proof for a proximity
authentication protocol, due to Hancke and Kuhn, that uses a subtle form of
probabilistic reasoning to achieve its goals.Comment: 31 pages, 2 figures; short version of this paper appeared in the
Proceedings of MFPS 201
Automatic Classification of Restricted Lattice Walks
We propose an experimental mathematics approach leading to the
computer-driven discovery of various structural properties of general counting
functions coming from enumeration of walks
Robust Cryptography in the Noisy-Quantum-Storage Model
It was shown in [WST08] that cryptographic primitives can be implemented
based on the assumption that quantum storage of qubits is noisy. In this work
we analyze a protocol for the universal task of oblivious transfer that can be
implemented using quantum-key-distribution (QKD) hardware in the practical
setting where honest participants are unable to perform noise-free operations.
We derive trade-offs between the amount of storage noise, the amount of noise
in the operations performed by the honest participants and the security of
oblivious transfer which are greatly improved compared to the results in
[WST08]. As an example, we show that for the case of depolarizing noise in
storage we can obtain secure oblivious transfer as long as the quantum
bit-error rate of the channel does not exceed 11% and the noise on the channel
is strictly less than the quantum storage noise. This is optimal for the
protocol considered. Finally, we show that our analysis easily carries over to
quantum protocols for secure identification.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figures. v2: clarified novelty of results, improved
security analysis using fidelity-based smooth min-entropy, v3: typos and
additivity proof in appendix correcte
The Bounded Storage Model in The Presence of a Quantum Adversary
An extractor is a function E that is used to extract randomness. Given an
imperfect random source X and a uniform seed Y, the output E(X,Y) is close to
uniform. We study properties of such functions in the presence of prior quantum
information about X, with a particular focus on cryptographic applications. We
prove that certain extractors are suitable for key expansion in the bounded
storage model where the adversary has a limited amount of quantum memory. For
extractors with one-bit output we show that the extracted bit is essentially
equally secure as in the case where the adversary has classical resources. We
prove the security of certain constructions that output multiple bits in the
bounded storage model.Comment: 13 pages Latex, v3: discussion of independent randomizers adde
Optimal randomness certification from one entangled bit
By performing local projective measurements on a two-qubit entangled state
one can certify in a device-independent way up to one bit of randomness. We
show here that general measurements, defined by positive-operator-valued
measures, can certify up to two bits of randomness, which is the optimal amount
of randomness that can be certified from an entangled bit. General measurements
thus provide an advantage over projective ones for device-independent
randomness certification.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, computational details at
http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/peterwittek/ipython-notebooks/blob/master/Optimal%20randomness%20generation%20from%20entangled%20quantum%20states.ipyn
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