A quantum cryptographic protocol based in public key cryptography combinations and private key cryptography is presented. Unlike the BB84 protocol [1] and its many variants [2,3] two quantum channels are used. The present research does not make reconciliation mechanisms of information to derive the key. A three related system of key distribution are described.
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 consider using a secret key and a noisy quantum channel to generate noiseless public communication and noiseless private communication. The optimal protocol for this setting is the publicly-enhanced private father protocol. This protocol exploits random coding techniques and "piggybacking" of public information along with secret-key-assisted private codes. The publicly-enhanced private father protocol is a generalization of the secret-key-assisted protocol of Hsieh, Luo, and Brun and a generelization of a protocol for simultaneous communication of public and private information suggested by…
To evade the well-known impossibility of unconditionally secure quantum two-party computations, previous quantum private comparison protocols have to adopt a third party. Here we study how far we can go with two parties only. We propose a very feasible and efficient protocol. Intriguingly, although the average amount of information leaked cannot be made arbitrarily small, we find that it never exceeds 14 bits for any length of the bit-string being compared.
Since unconditionally secure quantum two-party computations are known to be impossible, most existing quantum private comparison (QPC) protocols adopted a third party. Recently, we proposed a QPC protocol which involves two parties only, and showed that although it is not unconditionally secure, it only leaks an extremely small amount of information to the other party. Here we further propose the device-independent version of the protocol, so that it can be more convenient and dependable in practical applications.
We analyze the security of the efficient two-party quantum private comparison protocol with decoy photons and two-photon entanglement. It is shown that the compromised third party (TP) can obtain the final comparison result without introducing any detectable errors in the standard semi-honest model. The attack strategy is discussed in detail and an improvement of this protocol is demonstrated. The idea of our attack might be instructive for the cryptanalysis of quantum cryptographic schemes.
Semi-quantum protocols construct connections between quantum users and ``classical'' users who can only perform certain ``classical'' operations. In this paper, we present a new semi-quantum private comparison protocol based on entangled states and single particles, which does not require pre-shared keys between the ``classical'' users to guarantee the security of their private data. By utilizing multi-particle entangled states and single particles, our protocol can be easily extended to multi-party scenarios to meet the requirements of multiple ``classical'' users who want to compare their pr…
We consider memoryless quantum communication protocols, where the two parties do not possess any memory besides their classical input and they take turns performing unitary operations on a pure quantum state that they exchange between them. Most known quantum protocols are of this type and recently a deep connection between memoryless protocols and Bell inequality violations has been explored recently by Buhrman et al. We study the information cost of memoryless quantum protocols by looking at a canonical problem: bounded-round quantum communication protocols for the one-bit AND function. We p…
By using d-level single-particle states, the first multi-party semiquantum private comparison (MSQPC) protocol which can judge the size relationship of private inputs from more than two classical users within one execution of protocol is put forward. This protocol requires the help of one quantum third party (TP) and one classical TP, both of whom are allowed to misbehave on their own but cannot conspire with anyone else. Neither quantum entanglement swapping nor unitary operations are necessary for implementing this protocol. TPs are only required to perform d-dimensional single-particle meas…
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…
Quantum Private Comparison (QPC) allows us to protect private information during its comparison. In the past various three-party quantum protocols have been proposed that claim to work well under noisy conditions. Here we tackle the problem of QPC under noise. We analyze the EPR-based protocol under depolarizing noise, bit flip and phase flip noise. We show how noise affects the robustness of the EPR-based protocol. We then present a straightforward protocol based on CSS codes to perform QPC which is robust against noise and secure under general attacks.
We prove a regularized formula for the secret key-assisted capacity region of a quantum channel for transmitting private classical information. This result parallels the work of Devetak on entanglement assisted quantum communication capacity \cite{DHW05RI}. This formula provides a new family protocol, the private father protocol, under the resource inequality framework that includes private classical communication \it{without} secret key assistance as a child protocol.
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…
We propose a new three-party quantum private comparison protocol using genuinely maximally entangled six-qubit states. In our protocol, three participants can determine whether their private information are equal or not without an external third party who helps compute the comparison result. At the same time the participants can preserve the privacy of their inputs, respectively. Our protocol does not need any unitary operations to encode information due to the excellent properties of genuinely maximally entangled six-qubit states. Additionally, the protocol uses one-step quantum transmission …
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…
In this paper, a novel semiquantum private comparison (SQPC) protocol based on single kind of Bell states is proposed, which allows two classical parties to judge the equality of their private inputs securely and correctly under the help of a semi-honest third party (TP) who possesses complete quantum capabilities. TP is allowed to misbehave on her own but cannot conspire with anyone else. Our protocol needs none of unitary operations, quantum entanglement swapping or the reordering operations. Moreover, our protocol only needs to prepare single kind of Bell states as initial quantum resource.…
In this paper, we put forward a multi-party quantum private comparison (MQPC) protocol with two semi-honest third parties (TPs) by adopting d-dimensional Bell states, which can judge the size relationship of private integers from more than two users within one execution of protocol. Each TP is permitted to misbehave on her own but cannot collude with others. In the proposed MQPC protocol, TPs are only required to apply d-dimensional single-particle measurements rather than d-dimensional Bell state measurements. There are no quantum entanglement swapping and unitary operations required in the p…
Semi-quantum private comparison (SQPC) allows two participants with limited quantum ability to securely compare the equality of their secrets with the help of a semi-dishonest third party (TP). Recently, Jiang proposed a SQPC protocol based on Bell states (Quantum Inf Process 19(6): 180, 2020) and claimed it is secure. In this paper, we present two types of attack on Jiang's SQPC protocol. In the first type of attack, an outside eavesdropper will make participants accept a wrong result. In the second type of attack, a malicious participant will not only make the other participant accept a wron…
In Yang et al.'s literatures (J. Phys. A: Math. 42, 055305, 2009; J. Phys. A:Math. 43, 209801, 2010), a quantum private comparison protocol based on Bell states and hash function is proposed, which aims to securely compare the equality of two participants' information with the help of a dishonest third party (TP). However, this study will point out their protocol cannot resist a special kind of attack, TP's same initial states attack, which is presented in this paper. That is, the dishonest TP can disturb the comparison result without being detected through preparing the same initial states. F…
We investigate the approximate quantum state sharing protocol based on random unitary channels, which is secure against any exterior or interior attackers in principle. Although the protocol leaks small information for a security parameter $ε$, the scheme still preserves its information-theoretic secrecy, and reduces some pre-shared classical secret keys for a private quantum channel between a sender and two receivers. The approximate private quantum channels constructed via random unitary channels play a crucial role in the proposed quantum state sharing protocol.
Recently, Wu et al. [Int. J. Theor. Phys. 58, 1854, (2019)] found a serious information leakage problem in Ye and Ji's quantum private comparison protocol [Int. J. Theor. Phys. 56, 1517, (2017)], that is, a malicious participant can steal another's secret data without being detected through an active attack means. In this paper, we show that Wu et al.'s attack means is also effective for several other existing protocols, including the ones proposed by Ji et al. and Zha et al. [Commun. Theor. Phys. 65, 711, (2016) and Int. J. Theor. Phys. 57, 3874, (2018)]. In addition, we propose a passive att…
Private comparison is a primitive for many cryptographic tasks, and recently several schemes for the quantum private comparison (QPC) have been proposed, where two users can compare the equality of their secrets with the help of a semi-honest third party (TP) without knowing each other's secret and without disclosing the same to the TP. In the exisiting schemes, secrecy is obtained by using conjugate coding, and considering all participants as quantum users who can perform measurement(s) and/or create states in basis other than computational basis. In contrast, here we propose two new protocol…
Recently, Liu W et al. proposed a two-party quantum private comparison (QPC) protocol using entanglement swapping of Bell entangled state (Commun. Theor. Phys. 57(2012)583-588). Subsequently, Liu W J et al. pointed out that in Liu W et al.'s protocol, the TP can extract the two users' secret inputs without being detected by launching the Bell-basis measurement attack, and suggested the corresponding improvement to mend this loophole (Commun. Theor. Phys. 62(2014)210-214). In this paper, we first point out the information leakage problem toward TP existing in both of the above two protocols, an…
This study points out a semi-quantum protocol for private comparison using Bell states (SQPC) suffering from the double C-NOT attack and the malicious agent attack. The attacker can easily obtain information through these attacks. An improved protocol is proposed, which can effectively resist both of these attacks.
In this paper, a novel multi-party quantum private comparison (MQPC) protocol for equality comparison with n-level single-particle states is constructed, where the encoded particles are transmitted in a circular way. Here, n parties employ the qudit shifting operation to encode their private secrets and can compare the equality of their private secrets within one time execution of protocol. The proposed MQPC protocol can overcome both the outside attack and the participant attack. Specially, each party's secret can be kept unknown to other parties and the third party (TP).
In this paper, we propose a novel semiquantum private comparison (SQPC) protocol of size relationship based on d-level single-particle states. The designed protocol can compare the size relationship of different privacy messages from two classical users with the help of a semi-honest third party (TP), who is permitted to misbehave on her own but cannot be in collusion with anyone else. The correctness analysis shows that this protocol can gain correct comparison results. The security analysis turns out that this protocol can resist famous outside attacks and participant attacks. Moreover, this…
The first quantum private comparison (QPC) protocol via cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) is proposed in this paper by making full use of the evolution law of atom via cavity QED, where the third party (TP) is allowed to misbehave on his own but cannot conspire with either of the two users. The proposed protocol adopts two-atom product states rather than entangled states as the initial quantum resource, and only needs single-atom measurements for two users. Both the unitary operations and the quantum entanglement swapping operation are not necessary for the proposed protocol. The proposed p…
In this paper, a novel multi-party quantum private comparison (MQPC) protocol with a semi-honest third party (TP) is proposed based on the entanglement swapping of d-level cat states and d-level Bell states. Here, TP is allowed to misbehave on his own but will not conspire with any party. In our protocol, n parties employ unitary operations to encode their private secrets and can compare the equality of their private secrets within one time execution of the protocol. Our protocol can withstand both the outside attacks and the participant attacks on the condition that none of the QKD methods is…
The purpose of quantum private comparison (QPC) is to solve "Tierce problem" using quantum mechanics laws, where the "Tierce problem" is to judge whether the secret data of two participants are equal under the condition of protecting data privacy. Here we consider for the first time the usefulness of eight-qubit entangled states for QPC by proposing a new protocol. The proposed protocol only adopts necessary quantum technologies such as preparing quantum states and quantum measurements without using any other quantum technologies (e.g. unitary operations and entanglement swapping), thus the pr…
In this paper, by using d-level single-particle states, two novel multi-party quantum private comparison protocols for size relation comparison with two semi-honest third parties and one semi-honest third party are constructed, respectively. Here, each protocol can compare the size relation of secret integers from n parties rather than just the equality within one time execution. In each protocol, every third party is assumed to be semi-honest in the sense that she may misbehave on her own but is not allowed to collude with anyone else; and each party employs the qudit shifting operation to en…
Randomness is an important resource for many applications, from gambling to secure communication. However, guaranteeing that the output from a candidate random source could not have been predicted by an outside party is a challenging task, and many supposedly random sources used today provide no such guarantee. Quantum solutions to this problem exist, for example a device which internally sends a photon through a beam-splitter and observes on which side it emerges, but, presently, such solutions require the user to trust the internal workings of the device. Here we seek to go beyond this limit…
In this paper, we successfully design the semi-quantum private comparison (SQPC) protocol with the measure-resend characteristic by using two-particle product states as the initial prepared quantum resource which allows two classical users to compare the equality of their private secrets under the help of a quantum third party (TP). The quantum TP is semi-honest in the sense that he is allowed to misbehave on his own but cannot conspire with either of users. Both the output correctness and the security against the outside attack and the participant attack can be guaranteed. Compared with the p…
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…
In this paper, we present a quantum-key-distribution (QKD)-based quantum private query (QPQ) protocol utilizing single-photon signal of multiple optical pulses. It maintains the advantages of the QKD-based QPQ, i.e., easy to implement and loss tolerant. In addition, different from the situations in the previous QKD-based QPQ protocols, in our protocol, the number of the items an honest user will obtain is always one and the failure probability is always zero. This characteristic not only improves the stability (in the sense that, ignoring the noise and the attack, the protocol would always suc…
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 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…
Quantum private comparison (QPC) aims to accomplish the equality comparison of the secrets from different users without disclosing their genuine contents by using the principles of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we summarize eight modes of quantum state preparation and transmission existing in current QPC protocols first. Then, by using the mode of scattered preparation and one-way convergent transmission, we construct a new multi-user quantum private comparison (MQPC) protocol with two-particle maximally entangled states, which can accomplish arbitrary pair's comparison of equality among K…
In Quantum Private Query (QPQ), a client obtains values corresponding to his query only and nothing else from the server and the server does not get any information about the queries. Giovannetti et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2008) gave the first QPQ protocol and since then quite a few variants and extensions have been proposed. However, none of the existing protocols are device independent, i.e., all of them assume implicitly that the entangled states supplied to the client and the server are as prescribed. In this work, we exploit the idea of local CHSH game and connect it with the scheme of Yan…
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 …
In Private Information Retrieval (PIR), a client queries an n-bit database in order to retrieve an entry of her choice, while maintaining privacy of her query value. Chor, Goldreich, Kushilevitz, and Sudan showed that, in the information-theoretical setting, a linear amount of communication is required for classical PIR protocols (and thus that the trivial protocol is optimal). This linear lower bound was shown by Nayak to hold also in the quantum setting. Here, we extend Nayak's result by considering approximate privacy, and requiring security only against "specious" adversaries, which are, i…
We realize shamir's no-key protocol via quantum computation of Boolean permutation and private quantum channel. The quantum no-key (QNK) protocol presented here is one with mutual authentications, and proved to be unconditionally secure. An important property of this protocol is that0 its authentication key can be reused permanently.
Quantum technologies hold the promise of not only faster algorithmic processing of data, via quantum computation, but also of more secure communications, in the form of quantum cryptography. In recent years, a number of protocols have emerged which seek to marry these concepts for the purpose of securing computation rather than communication. These protocols address the task of securely delegating quantum computation to an untrusted device while maintaining the privacy, and in some instances the integrity, of the computation. We present a review of the progress to date in this emerging area.
We propose an entanglement-based quantum bit string commitment protocol whose composability is proven in the random oracle model. This protocol has the additional property of preserving the privacy of the committed message. Even though this property is not resilient against man-in-the-middle attacks, this threat can be circumvented by considering that the parties communicate through an authenticated channel. The protocol remains secure (but not private) if we realize the random oracles as physical unclonable functions in the so-called bad PUF model with access before the opening phase.
This study explores a new security problem existing in various state-of-the-art quantum private comparison (QPC) protocols, where a malicious third-party (TP) announces fake comparison (or intermediate) results. In this case, the participants could eventually be led to a wrong direction and the QPC will become fraudulent. In order to resolve this problem, a new level of trustworthiness for TP is defined and a new QPC protocol is proposed, where a second TP is introduced to monitor the first one. Once a TP announces a fake comparison (or intermediate) result, participants can detect the fraud i…
Quantum private information retrieval (QPIR) is a protocol in which a user retrieves one of multiple files from $\mathsf{n}$ non-communicating servers by downloading quantum systems without revealing which file is retrieved. As variants of QPIR with stronger security requirements, symmetric QPIR is a protocol in which no other files than the target file are leaked to the user, and $\mathsf{t}$-private QPIR is a protocol in which the identity of the target file is kept secret even if at most $\mathsf{t}$ servers may collude to reveal the identity. The QPIR capacity is the maximum ratio of the f…