A Cross-layer Provenance-Protection Architecture for Repeated Quantum Measurements in the Cloud

A Cross-layer Provenance-Protection Architecture for Repeated Quantum Measurements in the Cloud | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Physical Sciences - Article A Cross-layer Provenance-Protection Architecture for Repeated Quantum Measurements in the Cloud Baihe Ma, Zhanning Wang, Xu Wang, Xuelei Qi, Chen Li, Guangsheng Yu, and 5 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9185986/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Quantum cloud users access remote processors through classical measurement transcripts. The repeated shots that are operationally required for reliable quantum readout can systematically resolve microscopic, quasi-static hardware variations into stable statistical fingerprints. On IBM superconducting processors, we show that a transcript-only adversary can identify the backend with up to $89.3%$ attack success rate at $T = 20$ repetition rounds under multi-interface aggregation. This exposes a privacy locus mismatch: many channel-centric quantum privacy formulations regulate distinguishability at the level of quantum states or channels, whereas the operational attack in Quantum-Computing-as-a-Service (QCaaS) targets repeated classical transcripts and the latent service provenance they reveal after measurement. We therefore formulate privacy for repeated quantum workloads as a cross-layer provenance-protection problem. We protect the latent service provenance behind a released transcript, namely the service provenance that jointly reflects backend realization and serving context in QCaaS settings where this provenance is not fully disclosed to the observing party. At the measurement interface, we formulate Measurement-Agnostic Quantum Differential Privacy (MA-QDP) as an operational transcript-level privacy criterion for repeated quantum workloads, uniform over physically admissible POVMs and arbitrary classical post-processing. MA-QDP specifies the privacy locus and protected secret appropriate to QCaaS transcript release, and is instantiated via atomic outcome randomization before aggregation. At the orchestration layer, we incorporate context decorrelation to suppress persistent linkage of repeated sessions to a stable service provenance. In controlled simulations, the integrated framework suppresses provenance inference under realistic shot budgets while preserving task-relevant information, yielding a favorable privacy-utility frontier compared to channel-level and classical-level perturbations. Together, our results identify repetition as an intrinsic fingerprint amplifier in QCaaS and motivate a cross-layer provenance-protection architecture for secure, repeated quantum workloads. Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing/Information technology Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing/Computer science Physical sciences/Physics/Quantum physics/Quantum information Quantum security Quantum semantic information Fingerprint Privacy Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9185986","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Physical Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":610562282,"identity":"1f23b960-03af-45bb-a8a4-cdb6e2234745","order_by":0,"name":"Baihe 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13:15:20","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9185986/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9185986/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":105567179,"identity":"f81120b0-6dcb-467f-92fd-6dc2a5ecca6d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-27 12:58:33","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":8327010,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Article File","description":"","filename":"ACrossLayerProvenanceProtectionArchitectureforRepeatedQuantumMeasurementsintheCloud.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9185986/v1_covered_7b0e2cda-b3b0-4b8e-84a6-66598e01599d.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"A Cross-layer Provenance-Protection Architecture for Repeated Quantum Measurements in the 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Privacy","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9185986/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9185986/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Quantum cloud users access remote processors through classical measurement transcripts. The repeated shots that are operationally required for reliable quantum readout can systematically resolve microscopic, quasi-static hardware variations into stable statistical fingerprints. On IBM superconducting processors, we show that a transcript-only adversary can identify the backend with up to $89.3\\%$ attack success rate at $T = 20$ repetition rounds under multi-interface aggregation. This exposes a privacy locus mismatch: many channel-centric quantum privacy formulations regulate distinguishability at the level of quantum states or channels, whereas the operational attack in Quantum-Computing-as-a-Service (QCaaS) targets repeated classical transcripts and the latent service provenance they reveal after measurement.\r\n\r\nWe therefore formulate privacy for repeated quantum workloads as a cross-layer provenance-protection problem. We protect the latent service provenance behind a released transcript, namely the service provenance that jointly reflects backend realization and serving context in QCaaS settings where this provenance is not fully disclosed to the observing party. At the measurement interface, we formulate Measurement-Agnostic Quantum Differential Privacy (MA-QDP) as an operational transcript-level privacy criterion for repeated quantum workloads, uniform over physically admissible POVMs and arbitrary classical post-processing. MA-QDP specifies the privacy locus and protected secret appropriate to QCaaS transcript release, and is instantiated via atomic outcome randomization before aggregation. At the orchestration layer, we incorporate context decorrelation to suppress persistent linkage of repeated sessions to a stable service provenance.\r\n\r\nIn controlled simulations, the integrated framework suppresses provenance inference under realistic shot budgets while preserving task-relevant information, yielding a favorable privacy-utility frontier compared to channel-level and classical-level perturbations. Together, our results identify repetition as an intrinsic fingerprint amplifier in QCaaS and motivate a cross-layer provenance-protection architecture for secure, repeated quantum workloads.","manuscriptTitle":"A Cross-layer Provenance-Protection Architecture for Repeated Quantum Measurements in the Cloud","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-03-27 07:35:10","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9185986/v1","editorialEvents":[],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"d3134f8c-a02c-417d-947e-810f6a363f6d","owner":[],"postedDate":"March 27th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[{"id":64958343,"name":"Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing/Information technology"},{"id":64958344,"name":"Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing/Computer science"},{"id":64958345,"name":"Physical sciences/Physics/Quantum physics/Quantum information"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-03-27T07:35:10+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-03-27 07:35:10","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-9185986","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-9185986","identity":"rs-9185986","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}