We propose Pool: a conceptually simple post-quantum (PQ) oblivious pseudorandom function (OPRF) protocol, that is round-optimal (with input-independent preprocessing), practically efficient, and has security based on the well-understood hardness of the learning with rounding (LWR) problem. Specifically, our design permits oblivious computation of the LWR-based pseudorandom function Fsk(x) = ⌉ H(x)⊤ ⋅ sk ⌋q,p, for random oracle H: {0,1} * → ℤ qn and uniformly chosen sk∈ {0,1} n. For 128-bits of semi-honest security, the Pool OPRF has an online communication cost of 11.9 kB, and a computational runtime of less than 3 ms on a single thread (via an open-source software implementation). This is more efficient (in either online communication cost or runtime) than constructions from well-known PQ PRFs, and is competitive even with constructions that only conjecture PQ security on lesser-known assumptions. As a result, our design gives high-performance, post-quantum variants of established OPRF applications in multi-party computation and private set operation protocols.

Certain applications of fully homomorphic encryption (such as transciphering, universal thresholdizers, and PIR) require randomness while operating over encrypted data. This randomness has to be obliviously generated in the encrypted domain and remain encrypted throughout the computation. Moreover, it should be guaranteed that independent-looking random coins can be obliviously generated for different computations.