124 research outputs found
Insecurity of Quantum Secure Computations
It had been widely claimed that quantum mechanics can protect private
information during public decision in for example the so-called two-party
secure computation. If this were the case, quantum smart-cards could prevent
fake teller machines from learning the PIN (Personal Identification Number)
from the customers' input. Although such optimism has been challenged by the
recent surprising discovery of the insecurity of the so-called quantum bit
commitment, the security of quantum two-party computation itself remains
unaddressed. Here I answer this question directly by showing that all
``one-sided'' two-party computations (which allow only one of the two parties
to learn the result) are necessarily insecure. As corollaries to my results,
quantum one-way oblivious password identification and the so-called quantum
one-out-of-two oblivious transfer are impossible. I also construct a class of
functions that cannot be computed securely in any ``two-sided'' two-party
computation. Nevertheless, quantum cryptography remains useful in key
distribution and can still provide partial security in ``quantum money''
proposed by Wiesner.Comment: The discussion on the insecurity of even non-ideal protocols has been
greatly extended. Other technical points are also clarified. Version accepted
for publication in Phys. Rev.
- …