The differential-phase-shift quantum key distribution protocol is formalised as a prepare-and-measure scheme and translated into an equivalent entanglement-based protocol. A necessary condition for security is that Bob's measurement can detect the entanglement of the distributed state in the entanglement-based translation, which implies that his measurement is described by non-commuting POVM elements. This condition is shown to be met.
It is shown that Smolin four-qubit bound entangled states [Phys. Rev. A, 63 032306 (2001)] can maximally violate two-setting Bell inequality similar to standard CHSH inequality. Surprisingly this entanglement does not allow for secure key distillation, so neither entanglement nor violation of Bell inequalities implies quantum security. It is also pointed out how that kind of bound entanglement can be useful in reducing communication complexity.
We use the noisy entanglement-assisted classical capacity formula [arXiv:1609.08592] to create a coherent-attack security framework for Gaussian two-way quantum key distribution protocols in the asymptotic region.
We prove the unconditional security of an entanglement-based quantum-key-distribution protocol using detectors that respond to multiple modes of light and cannot distinguish between one from two or more photons. Even with such practical detectors, any defect in the source is automatically detected as an increase in the error rate or in the rate of double clicks.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) schemes without entanglement have huge advantages in scalability and are easier to realize as they only require sequential communications of a single quantum system. However, these schemes often come with drawbacks such as exact ($n, n$) structure, security flaws and absences of effective cheating detections. To address these problems, we propose a verifiable framework by utilizing entanglement-free states to construct ($t, n$)-QSS schemes. Our work is the heuristic step towards information-theoretical security in entanglement-free QSS, and it sheds light on how to…
We analyze tolerable quantum bit error rates in secret sharing protocols, and show that using entangled encoding states is advantageous in the case when the eavesdropping attacks are local. We also provide a criterion for security in secret sharing -- a parallel of the Csiszar-Korner criterion in single-receiver cryptography.
We give a proof that entanglement purification, even with noisy apparatus, is sufficient to disentangle an eavesdropper (Eve) from the communication channel. In the security regime, the purification process factorises the overall initial state into a tensor-product state of Alice and Bob, on one side, and Eve on the other side, thus establishing a completely private, albeit noisy, quantum communication channel between Alice and Bob. The security regime is found to coincide for all practical purposes with the purification regime of a two-way recurrence protocol. This makes two-way entanglement …
In a recent paper [Z. J. Zhang and Z. X. Man, Phys. Rev. A 72, 022303(2005)], a multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol based on entanglement swapping was presented. However, as we show, this protocol is insecure in the sense that an unauthorized agent group can recover the secret from the dealer. Hence, we propose an improved version of this protocol which can stand against this kind of attack.
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.
Security of passive entanglement-based key distribution protocols
Network Innovation Laboratories, NTT, Inc.（NTT网络创新实验室）；NTT Research Center for Theoretical Quantum Information, NTT, Inc.（NTT理论量子信息研究中心）；Basic Research Laboratories, NTT, Inc.（NTT基础研究所）
The need for secrecy and security is essential in communication. Secret sharing is a conventional protocol to distribute a secret message to a group of parties, who cannot access it individually but need to cooperate in order to decode it. While several variants of this protocol have been investigated, including realizations using quantum systems, the security of quantum secret sharing schemes still remains unproven almost two decades after their original conception. Here we establish an unconditional security proof for continuous variable entanglement-based quantum secret sharing schemes, in …
We show that in device independent quantum key distribution protocols the privacy of randomness is of crucial importance. For sublinear test sample sizes even the slightest guessing probability by an eavesdropper will completely compromise security. We show that a combined attack exploiting test sample and measurement choices compromises the security even with a linear size test sample and otherwise device independent security considerations. We explicitly derive the sample size needed to retrieve security as a function of the randomness quality. We demonstrate that exploiting features of genu…
High-dimensional quantum key distribution (HDQKD) offers the possibility of high secure-key rate with high photon-information efficiency. We consider HDQKD based on the time-energy entanglement produced by spontaneous parametric downconversion, and show that it is secure against collective attacks. Its security rests upon visibility data -- obtained from Franson and conjugate-Franson interferometers -- that probe photon-pair frequency correlations and arrival-time correlations. From these measurements an upper bound can be established on the eavesdropper's Holevo information by translating the…
We show a deterministic secure direct communication protocol using single qubit in mixed state. The security of this protocol is based on the security proof of BB84 protocol. It can be realized with current technologies.
Secure quantum key distribution with multimode Gaussian entangled states and multimode homodyne detectors is proposed. In general the multimode character of both the sources of entanglement and the homodyne detectors can cause a security break even for a perfect channel when trusted parties are unaware of the detection structure. Taking into account the multimode structure and potential leakage of information from a homodyne detector reduces the loss of security to some extent. We suggest the symmetrization of the multimode sources of entanglement as an efficient method allowing us to fully re…
We analyse security costs in one segment of nested purification protocol in a large quantum cryptography network, employing the quantum switchers and repeaters. We demonstrate that exponential or even super-exponential grow of entanglement resources occurs in dependence on number of the network switchers. For this reason, an optimization in the nested strategy is suggested, preventing a stronger than the exponential grow of entanglement resources.
We present a composably secure protocol allowing $n$ parties to test an entanglement generation resource controlled by a possibly dishonest party. The test consists only in local quantum operations and authenticated classical communication once a state is shared among them and provides composable security, namely it can be used as a secure subroutine by $n$ honest parties within larger communication protocols to test if a source is sharing quantum states that are at least $ε$-close to the GHZ state. This claim comes on top of previous results on multipartite entanglement verification where the…
We propose the use of intra-particle entanglement to enhance the security of a practical implementation of the Bennett-Brassard-1984 (BB84) quantum key distribution scheme. Intra-particle entanglement is an attractive resource since it can be easily generated using only linear optics. Security is studied under a simple model of incoherent attack for protocols involving two or all five mutually unbiased bases. In terms of efficiency of secret key generation and tolerable error rate, the latter is found to be superior to the former. We find that states that allow secrecy distillation are necessa…
We discuss quantum key distribution protocols using quantum continuous variables. We show that such protocols can be made secure against individual gaussian attacks regardless the transmission of the optical line between Alice and Bob. This is achieved by reversing the reconciliation procedure subsequent to the quantum transmission, that is, using Bob's instead of Alice's data to build the key. Although squeezing or entanglement may be helpful to improve the resistance to noise, they are not required for the protocols to remain secure with high losses. Therefore, these protocols can be impleme…
In continuous-variable quantum information processing detectors are necessarily coarse grained and of finite range. We discuss how especially the latter feature is a bug and may easily lead to overoptimistic estimates of entanglement and of security, when missed data outside the detector range are ignored. We show that entropic separability or security criteria are much superior to variance-based criteria for mitigating the negative effects of this bug.
Photonic systems based on energy-time entanglement have been proposed to test local realism using the Bell inequality. A violation of this inequality normally also certifies security of device-independent quantum key distribution, so that an attacker cannot eavesdrop or control the system. Here, we show how this security test can be circumvented in energy-time entangled systems when using standard avalanche photodetectors, allowing an attacker to compromise the system without leaving a trace. With tailored pulses of classical light we reach Bell values up to 3.63 at 97.6% detector efficiency w…
We prove the security of the 1984 protocol of Bennett and Brassard (BB84) for quantum key distribution. We first give a key distribution protocol based on entanglement purification, which can be proven secure using methods from Lo and Chau's proof of security for a similar protocol. We then show that the security of this protocol implies the security of BB84. The entanglement-purification based protocol uses Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) codes, and properties of these codes are used to remove the use of quantum computation from the Lo-Chau protocol.
Secret sharing is a multi-party cryptographic primitive that can be applied to a network of partially distrustful parties for encrypting data that is both sensitive (it must remain secure) and important (it must not be lost or destroyed). When sharing classical secrets (as opposed to quantum states), one can distinguish between protocols that leverage bi-partite quantum key distribution (QKD) and those that exploit multi-partite entanglement. The latter class are known to be vulnerable to so-called participant attacks and, while progress has been made recently, there is currently no analysis t…
We derive a proof of security for the Differential Phase Shift Quantum Key Distribution (DPSQKD) protocol under the assumption that Eve is restricted to individual attacks. The security proof is derived by bounding the average collision probability, which leads directly to a bound on Eve's mutual information on the final key. The security proof applies to realistic sources based on pulsed coherent light. We then compare individual attacks to sequential attacks and show that individual attacks are more powerful.
We study the effect of a phase shift on the amount of transferrable two-spin entanglement in a spin chain. We consider a ferromagnetic Heisenberg/XY spin chain, both numerically and analytically, and two mechanisms to generate a phase shift, the Aharonov-Casher effect and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. In both cases, the maximum attainable entanglement is shown to be significantly enhanced, suggesting its potential usefulness in quantum information processing.
We address the question of how much entanglement can be certified from the observed correlations and the knowledge of the Hilbert space dimension of the measured systems. We focus on the case in which both systems are known to be qubits. For several correlations (though not for all), one can certify the same amount of entanglement as with state tomography, but with fewer assumptions, since nothing is assumed about the measurements. We also present security proofs of quantum key distribution without any assumption on the measurements. We discuss how both the amount of entanglement and the secur…
In a previous paper certain measurable criteria have been derived, that are sufficient to demonstrate the existence of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlations for measurements with continuous variable outcomes. Here it is shown how such EPR criteria, which do not demand perfect EPR correlations, can be used to prove the extent of security for continuous variable quantum cryptographic schemes (in analogy to that proposed by Ekert) where Alice and Bob hope to construct a secure sequence of values from measurements performed on continuous-variable EPR-correlated fields sent from a distant sour…
We propose a polarization-dependent spatial phase modulation method to purify the two-photon polarization entanglement generated by the biexciton cascade decay in a single semiconductor quantum dot. In principle, our method can completely compensate the random phase acquired from the decay of the non-degenerate exciton states in time domain. In frequency domain, our method is equivalent to shifting photon frequency according to its polarization. The method can be applied immediately by existing experimental set-ups.
Security of the three-party quantum secret sharing (QSS) schemes based on entanglement and a collective eavesdropping check is analyzed in the case of considerable quantum channel losses. An opaque attack scheme is presented for the dishonest agent to eavesdrop the message obtained by the other agent freely, which reveals that these QSS schemes are insecure for transmission efficiencies lower than 50%, especially when they are used to share an unknown quantum state. Finally, we present a general way to improve the security of QSS schemes for sharing not only a private key but also an unknown q…
We prove the unconditional security of coherent-state-based differential phase shift quantum key distribution protocol (DPSQKD) with block-wise phase randomization. Our proof is based on the conversion of DPSQKD to an equivalent entanglement-distillation protocol where the estimated phase error rate determines the amount of the privacy amplification. The generated final key has a contribution from events where the sender emits two or more photons, indicating the robustness of DPSQKD against photon-number-splitting attacks.
In this Letter, we prove the unconditional security of single-photon differential phase shift quantum key distribution (DPS-QKD) protocol, based on the conversion to an equivalent entanglement-based protocol. We estimate the upper bound of the phase error rate from the bit error rate, and show that DPS-QKD can generate unconditionally secure key when the bit error rate is not greater than 4.12%. This proof is the first step to the unconditional security proof of coherent state DPS-QKD.
In this article, we discuss the optimality of basis transformations as a security measure for quantum key distribution protocols based on entanglement swapping. To estimate the security, we focus on the information an adversary obtains on the raw key bits from a generic version of a collective attack strategy. In the scenario described in this article, the application of general basis transformations serving as a counter measure by one or both legitimate parties is analyzed. In this context, we show that the angles, which describe these basis transformations can be optimized compared to the ap…
An unconditionally secure quantum cion tossing protocol for two remote participants via entangled swapping is presented. The security of this protocol is guaranteed by the nonlocal property of quantum entanglement and the classical complexity.
We show the information-theoretic security proof of the differential-phase-shift (DPS) quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol based on the complementarity approach [arXiv:0704.3661 (2007)]. Our security proof provides a slightly better key generation rate compared to the one derived in the previous security proof in [arXiv:1208.1995 (2012)] that is based on the Shor-Preskill approach [Phys. Rev. Lett. ${\bf 85}$, 441 (2000)]. This improvement is obtained because the complementarity approach can employ more detailed information on Alice's sending state in estimating the leaked information to a…
Recently, Yu, Brown, and Chuang [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 71}, 032341 (2005)] investigated the entanglement attainable from unitary transformed thermal states in liquid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Their research gave an insight into the role of the entanglement in a liquid-state NMR quantum computer. Moreover, they attempted to reveal the role of mixed-state entanglement in quantum computing. However, they assumed that the Zeeman energy of each nuclear spin which corresponds to a qubit takes a common value for all; there is no chemical shift. In this paper, we research a model with the ch…
We propose a quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol that enables three parties agree at once on a shared common random bit string in presence of an eavesdropper without use of entanglement. We prove its unconditional security and analyze the key rate.
The influence of the dynamical Stark shift on the thermal entanglement and the efficiency of the quantum Otto cycle is studied for the su(1,1) Tavis-Cummings system. It is shown that the degree of the thermal entanglement becomes larger as the dynamical Stark shift increases. In contrast, the efficiency of the Otto cycle is degraded with an increase of the values of dynamical Stark shift. Expressions for the efficiency coefficient are derived. Using those expressions we identify the maximal efficiency of the quantum Otto cycle from the experimentally measured values of the dynamical Stark shif…
We show that, under certain conditions, the micromaser can act as an effective source of highly correlated atoms. It is possible to create an extended robust entanglement between two successive, initially unentangled atoms passing through a cavity filled with with a nonlinear medium taking into consideration a slight level shift. Information is transfered from the cavity to the atoms in order to build up entanglement. The scheme has an advantage over conventional creation of entanglement if the two atoms (qubits) are so far apart that a direct interaction is difficult to achieve. The interacti…
We prove the security of a high-capacity quantum key distribution protocol over noisy channels. By using entanglement purification protocol, we construct a modified version of the protocol in which we separate it into two consecutive stages. We prove their securities respectively and hence the security of the whole protocol.
We investigate limitations imposed by detector dead-times on the performance of sequential attacks against a differential-phase-shift (DPS) quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol with weak coherent pulses. In particular, we analyze sequential attacks based on unambiguous state discrimination of the signal states emitted by the source and we obtain ultimate upper bounds on the maximal distance achievable by a DPS QKD scheme both in the so-called trusted and untrusted device scenarios, respectively.
A general proof of the security against eavesdropping of a previously introduced protocol for two-party quantum key distribution based on entanglement swapping [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 61}, 052312 (2000)] is provided. In addition, the protocol is extended to permit multiparty quantum key distribution and secret sharing of classical information.
The Differential-Phase-Shift (DPS) and the Coherent-One-Way (COW) are among the most practical protocols for quantum cryptography, and are therefore the object of fast-paced experimental developments. The assessment of their security is also a challenge for theorists: the existing tools, that allow to prove security against the most general attacks, do not apply to these two protocols in any straightforward way. We present new upper bounds for their security in the limit of large distances ($d \gtrsim 50$km with typical values in optical fibers) by considering a large class of collective attac…
Differential phase shift quantum key distribution systems have a high potential for achieving high speed key generation. However, its unconditional security proof is still missing, even though it has been proposed for many years. Here, we prove its security against collective attacks with a weak coherent light source in the noiseless case (i.e. no bit error). The only assumptions are that quantum theory is correct, the devices are perfect and trusted and the key size is infinite. Our proof works on threshold detectors. We compute the lower bound of the secret key generation rate using the info…
We present a quantum secure direct communication protocol and a multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol based on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs and entanglement swapping. The present quantum secure direct communication protocol makes use of the ideal of block transmission. We also point out that the sender can encode his or her secret message without ensuring the security of the quantum channel firstly. In the multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol, the communication parties adopt checking mode or encoding mode with a certain probability. It is not necessary for the protocol to perform l…
Among many quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, the round-robin differential phase shift (RRDPS) protocol is unique in that it can upper-bound the amount of the information leakage without monitoring the signal disturbance. To expedite implementation of the protocol, however, the number of pulses forming a single block should be kept small, which significantly decreases the key rates in the original security proof. In the present paper, we refine the security proof of the RRDPS protocol in the finite-sized regime and achieve a tighter estimation for the information leakage without changin…
The laws of quantum physics endow superior performance and security for information processing: quantum sensing harnesses nonclassical resources to enable measurement precision unmatched by classical sensing, whereas quantum cryptography aims to unconditionally protect the secrecy of the processed information. Here, we present the theory and experiment for entanglement-enhanced covert sensing, a paradigm that simultaneously offers high measurement precision and data integrity by concealing the probe signal in an ambient noise background so that the execution of the protocol is undetectable wit…
