CryptoDB

Noah Stephens-Davidowitz

Publications

Year
Venue
Title
2021
EUROCRYPT
We show a 2^{n/2+o(n)}-time algorithm that, given as input a basis of a lattice $\lat \subset \R^n$, finds a (non-zero) vector in whose length is at most $\widetilde{O}(\sqrt{n})\cdot \min\{\lambda_1(\lat), \det(\lat)^{1/n}\}$, where $\lambda_1(\lat)$ is the length of a shortest non-zero lattice vector and $\det(\lat)$ is the lattice determinant. Minkowski showed that $\lambda_1(\lat) \leq \sqrt{n} \det(\lat)^{1/n}$ and that there exist lattices with $\lambda_1(\lat) \geq \Omega(\sqrt{n}) \cdot \det(\lat)^{1/n}$, so that our algorithm finds vectors that are as short as possible relative to the determinant (up to a polylogarithmic factor). The main technical contribution behind this result is new analysis of (a simpler variant of) a 2^{n/2 + o(n)}-time algorithm from [ADRS15], which was only previously known to solve less useful problems. To achieve this, we rely crucially on the reverse Minkowski theorem'' (conjectured by Dadush [DR16] and proven by [RS17]), which can be thought of as a partial converse to the fact that $\lambda_1(\lat) \leq \sqrt{n} \det(\lat)^{1/n}$. Previously, the fastest known algorithm for finding such a vector was the 2^{0.802n + o(n)}-time algorithm due to [LWXZ11], which actually found a non-zero lattice vector with length $O(1) \cdot \lambda_1(\lat)$. Though we do not show how to find lattice vectors with this length in time $2^{n/2+o(n)}$, we do show that our algorithm suffices for the most important application of such algorithms: basis reduction. In particular, we show a modified version of Gama and Nguyen's slide-reduction algorithm [GN08], which can be combined with the algorithm above to improve the time-length tradeoff for shortest-vector algorithms in nearly all regimes---including the regimes relevant to cryptography.
2021
CRYPTO
Real-world random number generators (RNGs) cannot afford to use (slow) cryptographic hashing every time they refresh their state R with a new entropic input X. Instead, they use super-efficient'' simple entropy-accumulation procedures, such as R <- rot_{alpha, n}(R) XOR X where rot_{alpha,n} rotates an n-bit state R by some fixed number alpha. For example, Microsoft's RNG uses alpha=5 for n=32 and alpha=19 for n=64. Where do these numbers come from? Are they good choices? Should rotation be replaced by a better permutation pi of the input bits? In this work we initiate a rigorous study of these pragmatic questions, by modeling the sequence of successive entropic inputs X_1,X_2, ... as independent (but otherwise adversarial) samples from some natural distribution family D. We show a simple but surprisingly powerful connection between entropy accumulation and understanding the Fourier spectrum of distributions in D. Our contribution is as follows. - We define 2-monotone distributions as a rich family D that includes relevant real-world distributions (Gaussian, exponential, etc.), but avoids trivial impossibility results. - For any alpha with gcd(alpha,n)=1, we show that rotation accumulates Omega(n) bits of entropy from n independent samples X_1,...,X_n from any (unknown) 2-monotone distribution with entropy k > 1. - However, we also show some choices of alpha perform much better than others for a given n. E.g., we show alpha=19 is one of the best choices for n=64; in contrast, alpha=5 is good, but generally worse than alpha=7, for n=32. - More generally, given a permutation pi and k > 1, we define a simple parameter, the covering number C_{pi,k}, and show that it characterizes the number of steps before the rule (R_1,...,R_n) <- (R_{pi(1)},..., R_{pi(n)}) XOR X accumulates nearly n bits of entropy from independent, 2-monotone samples of min-entropy k each. - We build a simple permutation pi^*, which achieves nearly optimal C_{pi^*,k} \approx n/k for all values of k simultaneously, and experimentally validate that it compares favorably with all rotations rot_{alpha,n}.
2020
CRYPTO
We show how to generalize Gama and Nguyen's slide reduction algorithm [STOC '08] for solving the approximate Shortest Vector Problem over lattices (SVP) to allow for arbitrary block sizes, rather than just block sizes that divide the rank n of the lattice. This leads to significantly better running times for most approximation factors. We accomplish this by combining slide reduction with the DBKZ algorithm of Micciancio and Walter [Eurocrypt '16]. We also show a different algorithm that works when the block size is quite large---at least half the total rank. This yields the first non-trivial algorithm for sublinear approximation factors. Together with some additional optimizations, these results yield significantly faster provably correct algorithms for \delta-approximate SVP for all approximation factors n^{1/2+\eps} \leq \delta \leq n^{O(1)}, which is the regime most relevant for cryptography. For the specific values of \delta = n^{1-\eps} and \delta = n^{2-\eps}, we improve the exponent in the running time by a factor of 2 and a factor of 1.5 respectively.
2020
CRYPTO
We show how to generalize lattice reduction algorithms to module lattices. Specifically, we reduce $\gamma$-approximate ModuleSVP over module lattices with rank $k \geq2$ to $\gamma'$-approximate ModuleSVP over module lattices with rank $2 \leq \beta \leq k$. To do so, we modify the celebrated slide-reduction algorithm of Gama and Nguyen to work with module filtrations, a high-dimensional generalization of the ($\Z$-)basis of a lattice. The particular value of $\gamma$ that we achieve depends on the underlying number field $K$, the order $R \subseteq \mathcal{O}_K$, and the embedding (as well as, of course, $k$ and $\beta$). However, for reasonable choices of these parameters, the approximation factor that we achieve is surprisingly close to the one achieved by plain'' lattice reduction algorithms, which require an arbitrary SVP oracle in the same dimension. In other words, we show that ModuleSVP oracles are nearly as useful as SVP oracles for solving approximate ModuleSVP in higher dimensions. Our result generalizes the recent independent result of Lee, Pellet-Mary, Stehl\'e, and Wallet, which works in the important special case when $\beta = 2$ and $R = \mathcal{O}_K$ is the ring of integers of $K$ under the canonical embedding. Indeed, at a high level our reduction can be thought of as a generalization of theirs in roughly the same way that block reduction generalizes LLL reduction.
2018
PKC
We continue the study of statistical zero-knowledge (SZK) proofs, both interactive and noninteractive, for computational problems on point lattices. We are particularly interested in the problem $\textsf {GapSPP}$GapSPP of approximating the $\varepsilon$ε-smoothing parameter (for some $\varepsilon < 1/2$ε<1/2) of an n-dimensional lattice. The smoothing parameter is a key quantity in the study of lattices, and $\textsf {GapSPP}$GapSPP has been emerging as a core problem in lattice-based cryptography, e.g., in worst-case to average-case reductions. We show that $\textsf {GapSPP}$GapSPP admits SZK proofs for remarkably low approximation factors, improving on prior work by up to roughly $\sqrt{n}$n. Specifically:There is a noninteractive SZK proof for $O(\log (n) \sqrt{\log (1/\varepsilon )})$O(log(n)log(1/ε))-approximate $\textsf {GapSPP}$GapSPP. Moreover, for any negligible $\varepsilon$ε and a larger approximation factor $\widetilde{O}(\sqrt{n \log (1/\varepsilon )})$O~(nlog(1/ε)), there is such a proof with an efficient prover.There is an (interactive) SZK proof with an efficient prover for $O(\log n + \sqrt{\log (1/\varepsilon )/\log n})$O(logn+log(1/ε)/logn)-approximate coGapSPP. We show this by proving that $O(\log n)$O(logn)-approximate $\textsf {GapSPP}$GapSPP is in $\mathsf {coNP}$coNP. In addition, we give an (interactive) SZK proof with an efficient prover for approximating the lattice covering radius to within an $O(\sqrt{n})$O(n) factor, improving upon the prior best factor of $\omega (\sqrt{n \log n})$ω(nlogn).
2016
CRYPTO
2015
EUROCRYPT
2014
CRYPTO

Crypto 2022
TCC 2019
Crypto 2018