English

Towards Simple and Useful One-Time Programs in the Quantum Random Oracle Model

Quantum Physics 2026-03-17 v2 Cryptography and Security

Abstract

We construct simulation-secure one-time memories (OTM) in the random oracle model, and present a plausible argument for their security against quantum adversaries with bounded and adaptive depth. Our contributions include: (1) A simple scheme where we use only single-qubit Wiesner states and conjunction obfuscation (constructible from LPN): no complex entanglement or quantum cryptography is required. (2) A new POVM bound where e prove that any measurement achieving (1ϵ)(1 - \epsilon) success on one basis has conjugate-basis guessing probability at most 12m+O(ϵ14)\frac{1}{2m} + O(\epsilon^\frac{1}{4}). (3) Simultation-secure OTMs in the quantum random oracle model where an adversary can only query the random oracle classically. (4) Adaptive depth security where, via an informal application of a lifting theorem from Arora et al., we conjecture security against adversaries with polynomial quantum circuit depth between random oracle queries. Security against adaptive, depth-bounded, quantum adversaries captures many realistic attacks on OTMs built from single-qubit states; our work thus paves the way for practical and truly secure one-time programs. Moreover, depth bounded adaptive adversarial models may allow for encoding one-time memories into error corrected memory states, opening the door to implementations of one-time programs which persist for long periods of time.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.13258,
  title  = {Towards Simple and Useful One-Time Programs in the Quantum Random Oracle Model},
  author = {Lev Stambler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.13258},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:11:10.705Z