Impersonating Quantum Secrets over Classical Channels

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2601.01058v1
• Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2026 03:40:28 GMT
• Title: Impersonating Quantum Secrets over Classical Channels
• Authors: Luowen Qian, Mark Zhandry,
• Abstract summary: We show that a simple eavesdropper listening in on classical communication will eventually be able to impersonate any of the parties.<n>As an additional application, we show that any quantum money scheme that can be verified through only classical queries to any oracle cannot be information-theoretically secure.
• Score: 10.75127981612396
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: We show that a simple eavesdropper listening in on classical communication between potentially entangled quantum parties will eventually be able to impersonate any of the parties. Furthermore, the attack is efficient if one-way puzzles do not exist. As a direct consequence, one-way puzzles are implied by reusable authentication schemes over classical channels with quantum pre-shared secrets that are potentially evolving. As an additional application, we show that any quantum money scheme that can be verified through only classical queries to any oracle cannot be information-theoretically secure. This significantly generalizes the prior work by Ananth, Hu, and Yuen (ASIACRYPT'23) where they showed the same but only for the specific case of random oracles. Therefore, verifying black-box constructions of quantum money inherently requires coherently evaluating the underlying cryptographic tools, which may be difficult for near-term quantum devices.

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