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

安全的互联网通信面临着一个真实的威胁，即利用量子力学定律的新型计算机。技术界目前正在努力工作，试图构建这样的“量子”计算机。虽然这些设备仍然存在许多谜团，但可以肯定的是，大规模量子计算机将很容易打破支撑当前互联网的所有当前公钥密码学。在某些攻击模型中，私钥加密的重要示例也会变得不安全。这个三机构合作项目研究这些安全基础设施的紧迫威胁背后的基本理论问题。它试图理解量子计算机的密码破解能力，专注于两个交织的主题：1）认证的量子安全，以及2）从新的原语构建量子安全密码。 项目活动还包括在研究生和本科生一级编制课程和提供指导。该项目还涉及旨在扩大计算机科学参与的具体外联活动，包括建立和发展“计算机科学中的妇女”分会，向当地高中开展外联活动，为高中STEM教师举办讲习班，以及为三个合作机构的普通观众开发计算机科学课程。一封邮件是否真的来自你--是一个基本的、经过充分研究的密码学挑战。在量子对手的情况下，如何恰当地表述这一基本概念尚不清楚，更不用说生产实现这一点的特定加密工具了。该项目正在解决上述两个挑战，重点是开发强有力的认证公式和提供安全认证的新加密结构。寻找“隐藏的”代数结构--就像两个数字列表只是彼此的循环移位--是量子计算机计算能力研究中的一个标志性主题。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，并且似乎相当困难。该项目研究这些问题的应用，以构建具有量子安全保障的新私钥加密工具。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，通过使用基金会的知识价值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.