We present a security analysis of the recently introduced Quantum Private Query (QPQ) protocol. It is a cheat sensitive quantum protocol to perform a private search on a classical database. It allows a user to retrieve an item from the database without revealing which item was retrieved, and at the same time it ensures data privacy of the database (the information that the user can retrieve in a query is bounded and does not depend on the size of the database). The security analysis is based on information-disturbance tradeoffs which show that whenever the provider tries to obtain information on the query, the query (encoded into a quantum system) is disturbed so that the person querying the database can detect the privacy violation.
Private queries allow a user Alice to learn an element of a database held by a provider Bob without revealing which element she was interested in, while limiting her information about the other elements. We propose to implement private queries based on a quantum key distribution protocol, with changes only in the classical post-processing of the key. This approach makes our scheme both easy to implement and loss-tolerant. While unconditionally secure private queries are known to be impossible, we argue that an interesting degree of security can be achieved, relying on fundamental physical prin…
The Quantum Private Query is a quantum cryptographic protocol to recover information from a database, preserving both user and data privacy: the user can test whether someone has retained information on which query was asked, and the database provider can test the quantity of information released. Here we introduce a new variant Quantum Private Query algorithm which admits a simple linear optical implementation: it employs the photon's momentum (or time slot) as address qubits and its polarization as bus qubit. A proof-of-principle experimental realization is implemented.
We propose a cheat sensitive quantum protocol to perform a private search on a classical database which is efficient in terms of communication complexity. It allows a user to retrieve an item from the server in possession of the database without revealing which item she retrieved: if the server tries to obtain information on the query, the person querying the database can find it out. Furthermore our protocol ensures perfect data privacy of the database, i.e. the information that the user can retrieve in a single queries is bounded and does not depend on the size of the database. With respect …
We describe a method for private database queries using exchange of quantum states with bits encoded in mutually incompatible bases. For technology with limited coherence time, the database vendor can announce the encoding after a suitable delay to allow the user to privately learn one of two items in the database without the ability to also definitely infer the second item. This quantum approach also allows the user to choose to learn other functions of the items, such as the exclusive-or of their bits, but not to gain more information than equivalent to learning one item, on average. This me…
We present a flexible quantum-key-distribution-based protocol for quantum private queries. Similar to M. Jakobi et al's protocol [Phys. Rev. A 83, 022301 (2011)], it is loss tolerant, practical and robust against quantum memory attack. Furthermore, our protocol is more flexible and controllable. We show that, by adjusting the value of $θ$, the average number of the key bits Alice obtains can be located on any fixed value the users wanted for any database size. And the parameter $k$ is generally smaller (even $k=1$ can be achieved) when $θ<π/4$, which implies lower complexity of both quantum an…
In the well-studied cryptographic primitive 1-out-of-N oblivious transfer, a user retrieves a single element from a database of size N without the database learning which element was retrieved. While it has previously been shown that a secure implementation of 1-out-of-N oblivious transfer is impossible against arbitrarily powerful adversaries, recent research has revealed an interesting class of private query protocols based on quantum mechanics in a cheat sensitive model. Specifically, a practical protocol does not need to guarantee that database cannot learn what element was retrieved if do…
Higher security and lower failure probability have always been people's pursuits in quantum-oblivious-key-transfer-based private query (QOKT-PQ) protocols since Jacobi \emph{et al}. [Phys. Rev. A 83, 022301 (2011)] proposed the first protocol of this kind. However, higher database security generally has to be obtained at the cost of a higher failure probability, and vice versa. Recently, based on a round-robin differential-phase-shift quantum key distribution protocol, Liu \emph{et al}. [Sci. China-Phys. Mech. Astron.58, 100301 (2015)] presented a private query protocol (RRDPS-PQ protocol) uti…
We prove unconditional security for a quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol based on distilling pbits (twisted ebits) [quant-ph/0309110] from an arbitrary untrusted state that is claimed to contain distillable key. Our main result is that we can verify security using only public communication -- via parameter estimation of the given untrusted state. The technique applies even to bound entangled states, thus extending QKD to the regime where the available quantum channel has zero quantum capacity. We also show how to convert our purification-based QKD schemes to prepare-measure schemes.
We show that, if the accessible information is used as a security quantifier, quantum channels with a certain symmetry can convey private messages at a tremendously high rate, as high as less than one bit below the rate of non-private classical communication. This result is obtained by exploiting the quantum data locking effect. The price to pay to achieve such a high private communication rate is that accessible information security is in general not composable. However, composable security holds against an eavesdropper who is forced to measure her share of the quantum system within a finite …
We give a security proof of quantum cryptography based entirely on entanglement purification. Our proof applies to all possible attacks (individual and coherent). It implies the security of cryptographic keys distributed with the help of entanglement-based quantum repeaters. We prove the security of the obtained quantum channel which may not only be used for quantum key distribution, but also for secure, albeit noisy, transmission of quantum information.
Measurement Device Independent Quantum Private Query (MDI QPQ) with qutrits is presented. We compare the database security and client's privacy in MDI QPQ for qubits with qutrits. For some instances, we observe that qutrit will provide better security for database than qubit. However, when it comes to the question of client's privacy we have to take additional measures in case of qutrit. Hence we conclude that though in case of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) higher dimension provides better security but in case of QPQ this is not obvious.
We show that three principle means of treating privacy amplification in quantum key distribution, private state distillation, classical privacy amplification, and via the uncertainty principle, are equivalent and interchangeable. By adapting the security proof based on the uncertainty principle, we construct a new protocol for private state distillation which we prove is identical to standard classical privacy amplification. Underlying this approach is a new characterization of private states, related to their standard formulation by the uncertainty principle, which gives a more physical under…
The first device-independent quantum private query protocol (MRT17) which is proposed by Maitra \emph{et al.} [Phys. Rev. A 95, 042344 (2017)] to enhance the security through the certification of the states and measurements. However, the MRT17 protocol works under an assumption of perfect detectors, which increases difficulty in the implementations. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate what would affect the security of this protocol if the detectors were imperfect. Meanwhile, Maitra \emph{et al.} also pointed out that this problem remains open. In this paper, we analyze the security of MRT1…
We address the question of existence of private quantum channel for qubits encoded in polarization degrees of freedom of a photon, that remains secure even if multi-photon (instead of single-photon) pulse is emitted. We show that random unitary channel distributed according to SU(2) Haar measure has this property. Further we analyze the qubit unitary k-designs. We show they ensure security if the photons' parity of the source is guaranteed. Otherwise, the qubit unitary k-designs do not guarantee perfect security.
The field of device-independent quantum cryptography has seen enormous success in the past several years, including security proofs for key distribution and random number generation that account for arbitrary imperfections in the devices used. Full security proofs in the field so far are long and technically deep. In this paper we show that the concept of the mirror adversary can be used to simplify device-independent proofs. We give a short proof that any bipartite Bell violation can be used to generate private random numbers. The proof is based on elementary techniques and is self-contained.
Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts（卢塞纳应用科学与艺术大学计算机科学与信息技术学院）；Ergon Informatik AG（Ergon信息科技股份公司）
This study presents the first semi-quantum private comparison protocol under an almost-dishonest third party. The proposed protocol allows two classical participants to compare their secret information without compromising it's privacy. The security analyses indicate that the protocol is free from several well-known attacks.
We provide a simple security proof for prepare & measure quantum key distribution protocols employing noisy processing and one-way postprocessing of the key. This is achieved by showing that the security of such a protocol is equivalent to that of an associated key distribution protocol in which, instead of the usual maximally-entangled states, a more general {\em private state} is distilled. Besides a more general target state, the usual entanglement distillation tools are employed (in particular, Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS)-like codes), with the crucial difference that noisy processing allo…
In a recent work by Maitra et al. (Phys. Rev. A, 2017), it was shown that the existing Quantum Private Query (QPQ) protocols fail to maintain the database security if the entangled states shared between Alice and Bob are not of a certain form. So it is necessary to certify the states a priori. In this regard, the local CHSH test was proposed. However, the proposed scheme works perfectly for the asymptotic case when we have infinite number of qubits. In this brief report, we upgrade the protocol for finite number of qubits and connect the sample size to the success probability of CHSH test. We …
Twin-field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) was conjectured to beat the private capacity of a point-to-point QKD link by using single-photon interference in a central measuring station. This remarkable conjecture has recently triggered an intense research activity to prove its security. Here, we introduce a TF-type QKD protocol which is conceptually simpler than the original proposal. It relies on local phase randomization, instead of global phase randomization, which significantly simplifies its security analysis and is arguably less demanding experimentally. We demonstrate that the secure…
Quantum private query (QPQ) is a kind of quantum protocols to protect both users' privacy in their communication. There is an interesting example, that is, Alice wants to buy one item from Bob's database, which is composed of a quantity of valuable messages. QPQ protocol is the communication procedure ensuring that Alice can get only one item from Bob, and at the same time, Bob cannot know which one was taken by Alice. Owing to its practicability, quantum-key-distribution-based QPQ has draw much attention in recent years. However, the post-processing of the key in such protocols, called oblivi…
Covert Quantum Learning: Privately and Verifiably Learning from Quantum Data
California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；University of Warwick（沃里克大学）；Morgan Stanley Machine Learning Research（摩根士丹利机器学习研究）；Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学）
Secure information retrieval is an essential task in today's highly digitised society. In some applications, it may be necessary that user query's privacy and database content's security are enforced. For these settings, symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR) could be employed, but its implementation is known to be demanding, requiring a private key-exchange network as the base layer. Here, we report for the first time a realisation of provably-secure SPIR supported by a quantum-secure key-exchange network. The SPIR scheme looks at biometric security, offering secure retrieval of 582-b…
In 2013, Boneh and Zhandry introduced the notion of indistinguishability (IND) in chosen plaintext (CPA) and chosen ciphertext (CCA) attacks by a quantum adversary which is given superposition access to an oracle for encryption and decryption queries but is restricted to classical queries in the challenge phase. In this paper we define IND-CPA and IND-CCA notions for symmetric encryption schemes where the adversary has full quantum superposition access to the oracle, and give constructions that achieve these security notions. Our results are formulated in the concrete security framework.
