AF: Medium: Collaborative Research: Quantum-Secure Cryptography and Fine-Grained Quantum Query Complexity

安全的互联网通信面临着利用量子力学定律的新型计算机的真正威胁。技术界目前正在努力构建这种“量子”计算机。尽管有关这些设备的许多谜团仍然存在，但可以肯定的是，大型量子计算机将轻松破解支撑当前互联网的所有当前公钥加密技术。在某些攻击模型中，私钥加密的重要示例也会变得不安全。这个 3 机构合作项目研究了这些对安全基础设施的紧急威胁背后的基本理论问题。它旨在了解量子计算机的密码破解能力，重点关注两个相互交织的主题：1）身份验证的量子安全性，以及 2）从新原语构建量子安全密码学。 该项目活动还包括研究生和本科生的课程开发和指导。该项目还涉及旨在扩大对计算机科学的参与的具体外展活动，包括建立和发展“计算机科学领域的女性”分会、向当地高中进行外展、为高中 STEM 教师举办讲习班，以及为三个合作机构的普通受众开发计算机科学课程。例如，验证证明电子邮件确实来自您，这是一项基本且经过充分研究的密码学挑战。在量子对手的背景下，尚不清楚如何适当地表述这一基本概念，更不用说生产实现它的特定密码工具了。该项目正在解决上述两个挑战，重点是开发强大的身份验证公式和提供安全身份验证的新密码结构。寻找“隐藏”的代数结构——就像两个数字列表只是彼此循环移位的事实——是量子计算机计算能力研究的一个标志性主题。这个问题的某些变体已经抵制了量子算法社区数十年的共同努力，并且看起来相当困难。该项目研究这些问题的应用，以构建具有量子安全保证的新私钥加密工具。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Secure Internet communication faces a real threat in the form of a new breed of computer that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics. The technical community is currently hard at work attempting to construct such "quantum" computers. While many mysteries about these devices remain, it is certain that a large-scale quantum computer would easily break all current public-key cryptography that underpins the current Internet. In certain attack models, important examples of private-key cryptography would also be rendered insecure. This 3-institution collaborative project studies the basic theoretical issues underlying these urgent threats to the security infrastructure. It seeks to understand the cryptography-breaking power of quantum computers, concentrating on two interweaving themes: quantum security for 1) authenticating, and 2) constructing quantum-secure cryptography from new primitives. The project activities also include course development and mentorship at the graduate and undergraduate level. The project also involves specific outreach activities intended to broaden participation in Computer Science, including establishment and development of "women in computer science" chapters, outreach to local high schools, workshops for high-school STEM teachers, and development of computer science courses for a general audience at the three partner institutions.Authentication-proofs, for example, that an e-mail really did originate from you--is a basic and well-studied cryptographic challenge. In the setting of quantum adversaries, it is not clear how to appropriately formulate this essential notion, let alone produce specific cryptographic tools that achieve it. This project is addressing both of the challenges noted above, focusing on development of strong formulations of authentication and new cryptographic constructions that offer secure authentication. Finding "hidden" algebraic structures--like the fact that two lists of numbers are merely cyclic shifts of each other--is an emblematic theme in the study of the computing power of quantum computers. Certain variants of this problem have resisted decades of concerted effort by the quantum algorithms community, and appear to be quite difficult. This project studies applications of these problems to constructing new private-key cryptographic tools with quantum security guarantees.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.