Capacity of non-malleable codes

Non-malleable codes, introduced by Dziembowski et al., encode messages s in a manner, so that tampering the codeword causes the decoder to either output s or a message that is independent of s. While this is an impossible goal to achieve against unrestricted tampering functions, rather surprisingly non-malleable coding becomes possible against every fixed family P of tampering functions that is not too large (for instance, when I≤I 22αn for some α 0 and family P of size 2nc, in particular tampering functions with, say, cubic size circuits

Nearly optimal robust secret sharing

Abstract: We prove that a known approach to improve Shamir's celebrated secret sharing scheme; i.e., adding an information-theoretic authentication tag to the secret, can make it robust for n parties against any collusion of size δn, for any constant δ ∈ (0; 1/2). This result holds in the so-called “nonrushing” model in which the n shares are submitted simultaneously for reconstruction. We thus finally obtain a simple, fully explicit, and robust secret sharing scheme in this model that is essentially optimal in all parameters including the share size which is k(1+o(1))+O(κ), where k is the secret length and κ is the security parameter. Like Shamir's scheme, in this modified scheme any set of more than δn honest parties can efficiently recover the secret. Using algebraic geometry codes instead of Reed-Solomon codes, the share length can be decreased to a constant (only depending on δ) while the number of shares n can grow independently. In this case, when n is large enough, the scheme satisfies the “threshold” requirement in an approximate sense; i.e., any set of δn(1 + ρ) honest parties, for arbitrarily small ρ > 0, can efficiently reconstruct the secret

Expressions for the entropy of binomial-type distributions

We develop a general method for computing logarithmic and log-gamma expectations of distributions. As a result, we derive series expansions and integral representations of the entropy for several fundamental distributions, including the Poisson, binomial, beta-binomial, negative binomial, and hypergeometric distributions. Our results also establish connections between the entropy functions and to the Riemann zeta function and its generalizations

Local Testing for Membership in Lattices

Motivated by the structural analogies between point lattices and linear error-correcting codes, and by the mature theory on locally testable codes, we initiate a systematic study of local testing for membership in lattices. Testing membership in lattices is also motivated in practice, by applications to integer programming, error detection in lattice-based communication, and cryptography. Apart from establishing the conceptual foundations of lattice testing, our results include the following: 1. We demonstrate upper and lower bounds on the query complexity of local testing for the well-known family of code formula lattices. Furthermore, we instantiate our results with code formula lattices constructed from Reed-Muller codes, and obtain nearly-tight bounds. 2. We show that in order to achieve low query complexity, it is sufficient to design one-sided non-adaptive canonical tests. This result is akin to, and based on an analogous result for error-correcting codes due to Ben-Sasson et al. (SIAM J. Computing 35(1) pp1-21)

Improved capacity upper bounds for the discrete-time poisson channel

We present new capacity upper bounds for the discrete-time Poisson channel with no dark current and an average-power constraint. These bounds are a simple consequence of techniques developed by one of the authors for the seemingly unrelated problem of upper bounding the capacity of binary deletion and repetition channels. Previously, the best known capacity upper bound in the regime where the average-power constraint does not approach zero was due to Martinez (JOSA B, 2007), which we re-derive as a special case of our framework. Furthermore, we instantiate our framework to obtain a closed-form bound that noticeably improves the result of Martinez everywhere

Non-malleable coding against bit-wise and split-state tampering

Non-malleable coding, introduced by Dziembowski et al. (ICS 2010), aims for protecting the integrity of information against tampering attacks in situations where error detection is impossible. Intuitively, information encoded by a non-malleable code either decodes to the original message or, in presence of any tampering, to an unrelated message. Non-malleable coding is possible against any class of adversaries of bounded size. In particular, Dziembowski et al. show that such codes exist and may achieve positive rates for any class of tampering functions of size at most (Formula presented.), for any constant (Formula presented.). However, this result is existential and has thus attracted a great deal of subsequent research on explicit constructions of non-malleable codes against natural classes of adversaries. In this work, we consider constructions of coding schemes against two well-studied classes of tampering functions; namely, bit-wise tampering functions (where the adversary tampers each bit of the encoding independently) and the much more general class of split-state adversaries (where two independent adversaries arbitrarily tamper each half of the encoded sequence). We obtain the following results for these models. (1) For bit-tampering adversaries, we obtain explicit and efficiently encodable and decodable non-malleable codes of length n achieving rate (Formula presented.) and error (also known as “exact security”) (Formula presented.). Alternatively, it is possible to improve the error to (Formula presented.) at the cost of making the construction Monte Carlo with success probability (Formula presented.) (while still allowing a compact description of the code). Previously, the best known construction of bit-tampering coding schemes was due to Dziembowski et al. (ICS 2010), which is a Monte Carlo construction achieving rate close to .1887. (2) We initiate the study of seedless non-malleable extractors as a natural variation of the notion of non-malleable extractors introduced by Dodis and Wichs (STOC 2009). We show that construction of non-malleable codes for the split-state model reduces to construction of non-malleable two-source extractors. We prove a general result on existence of seedless non-malleable extractors, which implies that codes obtained from our reduction can achieve rates arbitrarily close to 1 / 5 and exponentially small error. In a separate recent work, the authors show that the optimal rate in this model is 1 / 2. Currently, the best known explicit construction of split-state coding schemes is due to Aggarwal, Dodis and Lovett (ECCC TR13-081) which only achieves vanishing (polynomially small) rate

Trans-Planckian Effect in f(R)f(R) Cosmology

Apart from the assumption that the inflation started at an infinite time in the past, the more realistic initial state of the quantum fluctuations is described by a mixed quantum state imposed at a finite value of the initial time. One of the most important non-trivial vacua is the $\alpha$-vacuum, which is specified by a momentum cutoff $\Lambda$ \cite{Danielsson:2002kx}. As a consequence, the initial condition is imposed at different initial times for the different $k$-modes. This modifies the amplitude of the quantum fluctuations, and thus the corresponding power spectra. In this paper, we consider the imprint of the $\alpha$-vacuum state on the power spectrum of scalar perturbations in a generic $f(R)$ gravity by assuming an ultraviolet cutoff $\Lambda$. As a specific model, we consider the Starobinsky model and find the trans-Planckian power spectrum. We find that the leading order corrections to the scalar power spectra in $f(R)$ gravity have an oscillatory behavior as in general relativity \cite{Lim}, and furthermore, the results are in sufficient agreement with the $\Lambda$CDM model.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, 1 table

Cross-Sender Bit-Mixing Coding

Scheduling to avoid packet collisions is a long-standing challenge in networking, and has become even trickier in wireless networks with multiple senders and multiple receivers. In fact, researchers have proved that even {\em perfect} scheduling can only achieve $\mathbf{R} = O(\frac{1}{\ln N})$. Here $N$ is the number of nodes in the network, and $\mathbf{R}$ is the {\em medium utilization rate}. Ideally, one would hope to achieve $\mathbf{R} = \Theta(1)$, while avoiding all the complexities in scheduling. To this end, this paper proposes {\em cross-sender bit-mixing coding} ({\em BMC}), which does not rely on scheduling. Instead, users transmit simultaneously on suitably-chosen slots, and the amount of overlap in different user's slots is controlled via coding. We prove that in all possible network topologies, using BMC enables us to achieve $\mathbf{R}=\Theta(1)$. We also prove that the space and time complexities of BMC encoding/decoding are all low-order polynomials.Comment: Published in the International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), 201

AC0(MOD2) lower bounds for the Boolean inner product

AC0 ◦MOD2 circuits are AC0 circuits augmented with a layer of parity gates just above the input layer. We study AC0 ◦ MOD2 circuit lower bounds for computing the Boolean Inner Product functions. Recent works by Servedio and Viola (ECCC TR12-144) and Akavia et al. (ITCS 2014) have highlighted this problem as a frontier problem in circuit complexity that arose both as a first step towards solving natural special cases of the matrix rigidity problem and as a candidate for constructing pseudorandom generators of minimal complexity. We give the first superlinear lower bound for the Boolean Inner Product function against AC0 ◦ MOD2 of depth four or greater. Specifically, we prove a superlinear lower bound for circuits of arbitrary constant depth, and an Ω( ˜ n 2 ) lower bound for the special case of depth-4 AC0 ◦ MOD2. Our proof of the depth-4 lower bound employs a new “moment-matching” inequality for bounded, nonnegative integer-valued random variables that may be of independent interest: we prove an optimal bound on the maximum difference between two discrete distributions’ values at 0, given that their first d moments match

Nearly optimal solutions for the Chow Parameters Problem and low-weight approximation of halfspaces

The \emph{Chow parameters} of a Boolean function $f: \{-1,1\}^n \to \{-1,1\}$ are its $n+1$ degree-0 and degree-1 Fourier coefficients. It has been known since 1961 (Chow, Tannenbaum) that the (exact values of the) Chow parameters of any linear threshold function $f$ uniquely specify $f$ within the space of all Boolean functions, but until recently (O'Donnell and Servedio) nothing was known about efficient algorithms for \emph{reconstructing} $f$ (exactly or approximately) from exact or approximate values of its Chow parameters. We refer to this reconstruction problem as the \emph{Chow Parameters Problem.} Our main result is a new algorithm for the Chow Parameters Problem which, given (sufficiently accurate approximations to) the Chow parameters of any linear threshold function $f$, runs in time \tilde{O}(n^2)\cdot (1/\eps)^{O(\log^2(1/\eps))} and with high probability outputs a representation of an LTF $f'$ that is \eps-close to $f$. The only previous algorithm (O'Donnell and Servedio) had running time \poly(n) \cdot 2^{2^{\tilde{O}(1/\eps^2)}}. As a byproduct of our approach, we show that for any linear threshold function $f$ over $\{-1,1\}^n$, there is a linear threshold function $f'$ which is \eps-close to $f$ and has all weights that are integers at most \sqrt{n} \cdot (1/\eps)^{O(\log^2(1/\eps))}. This significantly improves the best previous result of Diakonikolas and Servedio which gave a \poly(n) \cdot 2^{\tilde{O}(1/\eps^{2/3})} weight bound, and is close to the known lower bound of $\max\{\sqrt{n},$ (1/\eps)^{\Omega(\log \log (1/\eps))}\} (Goldberg, Servedio). Our techniques also yield improved algorithms for related problems in learning theory