Quantum copy-protection of compute-and-compare programs in the quantum random oracle model

Understand

Copy-protection allows a software distributor to encode a program in such a way that it can be evaluated on any input, yet it cannot be "pirated" - a notion that is impossible to achieve in a classical setting.

• Aaronson (CCC 2009) initiated the formal study of quantum copy-protection schemes, and speculated that quantum cryptography could offer a solution to the problem thanks to the quantum no-cloning theorem.
• In this work, we introduce a quantum copy-protection scheme for a large class of evasive functions known as "compute-and-compare programs" - a more expressive generalization of point functions.
• A compute-and-compare program $\mathsf{CC}[f,y]$ is specified by a function $f$ and a string $y$ within its range: on input $x$, $\mathsf{CC}[f,y]$ outputs $1$, if $f(x) = y$, and $0$ otherwise.