Quantum communication holds promise for absolutely security in secret message transmission. Quantum secure direct communication is an important mode of the quantum communication in which secret messages are securely communicated over a quantum channel directly. It has become one of the hot research areas in the last decade, and offers both high security and instantaneousness in communication. It is also a basic cryptographic primitive for constructing other quantum communication tasks such as quantum authentication, quantum dialogue and so on. Here we report the first experimental demonstration of quantum secure direct communication with single photons. The experiment is based on the DL04 protocol, equipped with a simple frequency coding. It has the advantage of being robust against channel noise and loss. The experiment demonstrated explicitly the block data transmission technique, which is essential for quantum secure direct communication. In the experiment, a block transmission of 80 single photons was demonstrated over fiber, and it provides effectively 16 different values, which is equivalent to 4 bits of direct transmission in one block. The experiment has firmly demonstrated the feasibility of quantum secure direct communication in the presence of noise and loss.
We present a subtle idea to economically improve message-unilaterally-transmitted quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocols to realize two-way secure direct communication.
In this letter a deterministic secure direct bidirectional communication protocol is proposed by using the quantum entanglement and local unitary operations on one photon of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) photon pair.
Several theoretical Deterministic Secure Direct Bidirectional Communication protocols are generalized to improve their capacities by introducing the superdense-coding in the case of high-dimension quantum states.
Semi-quantum protocols that allow some of the users to remain classical are proposed for a large class of problems associated with secure communication and secure multiparty computation. Specifically, first time semi-quantum protocols are proposed for key agreement, controlled deterministic secure communication and dialogue, and it is shown that the semi-quantum protocols for controlled deterministic secure communication and dialogue can be reduced to semi-quantum protocols for e-commerce and private comparison (socialist millionaire problem), respectively. Complementing with the earlier propo…
Quantum secure direct communication is the direct communication of secret messages without first producing a shared secret key. It maybe used in some urgent circumstances. Here we propose a quantum secure direct communication protocol using single photons. The protocol uses batches of single photons prepared randomly in one of four different states. These single photons serve as a one-time-pad which are used directly to encode the secret messages in one communication process. We also show that it is unconditionally secure. The protocol is feasible with present-day technique.
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.
We present a scheme for three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication by using EPR pairs. In the scheme, three legitimate parties can simultaneously exchange their secret messages. It is also proved to be secure against the intercept-and-resend attack, the disturbance attack and the entangled-and-measure attack.
We present a quantum secure direct communication protocol where the channels are not maximally entangled states. The communication parties utilize decoy photons to check eavesdropping. After ensuring the security of the quantum channel, the sender encodes the secret message and transmits it to the receiver by using Controlled-NOT operation and von Neumann measurement. The protocol is simple and realizable with present technology. We also show the protocol is secure for noisy quantum channel.
In the paper [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{69}, 052319 (2004)], a quantum direct communication protocol is proposed which is claimed to be unconditionally secure even for the case of a noisy channel. We show that this is not the case by giving an undetectable attack scheme.
In light of Deng-Long-Liu's two-step secret direct communication protocol using the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pair block [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 68}, 042317 (2003)], by introducing additional local operations for encoding, we propose a brand-new secure direct communication protocol, in which two legitimate users can simultaneously transmit their different secret messages to each other in a set of quantum communication device.
Extending the eavesdropping strategy devised by Zhang, Li and Guo [Phys. Rev. A 63, 036301 (2001)], we show that the multiparty quantum communication protocol based on entanglement swapping, which was proposed by Cabello [quant-ph/0009025], is not secure. We modify the protocol so that entanglement swapping can secure multiparty quantum communication, such as multiparty quantum key distribution and quantum secret sharing of classical information, and show that the modified protocol is secure against the Zhang-Li-Guo's strategy for eavesdropping as well as the basic intercept-resend attack.
Most of the quantum secure direct communication protocol needs a pre-established secure quantum channel. Only after insuring the security of quantum channel, could the sender encode the secret message and send them to the receiver through the secure channel. In this paper, we present a quantum secure direct communication protocol using Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs. It is not necessary for the present protocol to insure the security of quantum channel before transmitting the secret message. In the present protocol, all Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs are used to transmit the secret message excep…
We propose two deterministic secure quantum communication (DSQC) protocols employing three-qubit GHZ-like states and five-qubit Brown states as quantum channels for secure transmission of information in units of two bits and three bits using multipartite teleportation schemes developed here. In these schemes, the sender's capability in selecting quantum channels and the measuring bases leads to improved qubit efficiency of the protocols.
Secure communication based on message encryption might be performed by combining the message with controlled noise (called pseudo-noise) as performed in Spread-Spectrum communication used presently in Wi-Fi and Smartphone Telecommunication systems. Quantum communication based on entanglement is another route for securing communications as demonstrated by several important experiments described in this work. The central role played by the photon in unifying the description of Classical and Quantum noise as major ingredients of secure communication systems is highlighted and described on the bas…
We discuss the four requirements for a real point-to-point quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) first, and then present two efficient QSDC network schemes with an N ordered Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs. Any one of the authorized users can communicate another one on the network securely and directly.
We propose the schemes of quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) based on secret transmitting order of particles. In these protocols, the secret transmitting order of particles ensures the security of communication, and no secret messages are leaked even if the communication is interrupted for security. This strategy of security for communication is also generalized to quantum dialogue. It not only ensures the unconditional security but also improves the efficiency of communication.
In this letter we propose a theoretical deterministic secure direct bidirectional quantum communication protocol by using swapping quantum entanglement and local unitary operations, in which the quantum channel for photon transmission can be discarded, hence any attack with or without eavesdropping or even the destructive attack without scruple is impossible.
It has been found that the signal can be encoded in the choice of the measurement basis of one of the communicating parties, while the outcomes of the measurement are irrelevant for the communication and therefore may be discarded. The proposed protocol was novel and interesting, but it wasn't secure for communication. The eavesdropper can obtain the information without being detected. We utilize the outcomes of the measurement to propose a secure communication protocol. And the error correction code is used to increase the fault tolerance in the noise.
We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that secure communication using intermediate-energy (mesoscopic) coherent states is possible. Our scheme is different from previous quantum cryptographic schemes in that a short secret key is explicitly used and in which quantum noise hides both the bit and the key. This encryption scheme can be optically amplified. New avenues are open to secure communications at high speeds in fiber-optic or free-space channels.
Recently, Hwang et al. [Eur. Phys. J. D. 61, 785 (2011)] and Yuan et al. [Int. J. Theo. Phys. 50, 2403 (2011)] have proposed two efficient protocols of secure quantum communication using 3-qubit and 4-qubit symmetric W state respectively. These two dense coding based protocols are generalized and their efficiencies are considerably improved. Simple bounds on the qubit efficiency of deterministic secure quantum communication (DSQC) and quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocols are obtained and it is shown that dense coding is not essential for designing of maximally efficient DSQC an…
We show an improved ping-pong protocol which is based on the protocol showed by Kim Bostrom and Timo Felbinger [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 187902 (2002); quant-ph/0209040]. We show that our protocol is asymptotically secure key distribution and quasisecure direct communication using a single photon resource. And this protocol can be can be carried out with great efficiency and speed using today's technology.
Recently, Cao et al. proposed a new quantum secure direct communication scheme using W state. In their scheme, the error rate introduced by an eavesdropper who takes intercept-resend attack, is only 8.3%. Actually, their scheme is just a quantum key distribution scheme because the communication parties first create a shared key and then encrypt the secret message using one-time pad. We then present a quantum secure communication scheme using three-qubit W state. In our scheme, the error rate is raised to 25% and it is not necessary for the present scheme to use alternative measurement or Bell …
A novel secure communication protocol is presented, based on an entangled pair of qubits and allowing asymptotically secure key distribution and quasi-secure direct communication. Since the information is transferred in a deterministic manner, no qubits have to be discarded. The transmission of information is instantaneous, i.e. the information can be decoded during the transmission. The security against arbitrary eavesdropping attacks is provided. In case of eavesdropping attacks with full information gain, the detection rate is 50% per control transmission. The experimental realization of th…
A multipartner secure direct communication protocol is presented, using quantum nonlocality. Security of this protocol is based on `High fidelity implies low entropy'. When the entanglement was successfully distributed, anyone of the multipartner can send message secretly by using local operation and reliable public channel. Since message transfered only by using local operation and public channel after entanglement successfully distributed, so this protocol can protect the communication against destroying-travel-qubit-type attack.
Communication security with quantum key distribution has been one of the important features of quantum information theory. A novel concept of secured direct communication has been the next step forward without the need to establish any shared secret key. The present paper is based on the ping-pong protocol with three particle GHZ state as the initial state where the receiver can simultaneously receive information from two parties. Possible eavesdropping on the travelling particle has been examined.
In this work we introduce a novel QKD protocol capable of smoothly transitioning, via user-tuneable parameter, from classical to semi-quantum in order to help understand the effect of quantum communication resources on secure key distribution. We perform an information theoretic security analysis of this protocol to determine what level of "quantumness" is sufficient to achieve security, and we discover some rather interesting properties of this protocol along the way.
In this paper, a bidirectional quantum teleportation protocol based on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pairs and entanglement swapping is proposed. In this scheme, two users can simultaneously transmit an unknown single-qubit state to each other. The implementation of the proposed scheme is easier in experiment as compared to previous work. By utilizing this bidirectional quantum teleportation protocol, a bidirectional quantum secure direct communication scheme without carrying secret message is presented. Therefore, in the case of using perfect quantum channel, the protocol is completely secure…
We present a three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) scheme by using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states. This scheme can be directly generalized to $N$-party QSDC by using $n$-particle GHZ states. We show that the many-party simultaneous QSDC scheme is secure not only against the intercept-and-resend attack but also against the disturbance attack.
A novel communication protocol based on an entangled pair of qubits is presented, allowing secure direct communication from one party to another without the need for a shared secret key. Since the information is transferred in a deterministic manner, no qubits have to be discarded and every qubit carries message information. The security of the transfer against active and passive eavesdropping attacks is provided. The detection rate of active attacks is at least 25%. The protocol works with a quantum efficiency of 1 bit per qubit transmitted.
Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) is an important quantum communication branch, which realizes the secure information transmission directly without encryption and decryption processes. Recently, two table-top experiments have demonstrated the principle of QSDC. Here, we report the first long-distance QSDC experiment, including the security test, information encoding, fiber transmission and decoding. After the fiber transmission of 0.5 km, quantum state fidelities of the two polarization entangled Bell states are 91% and 88%, respectively, which are used for information coding. We theo…
A multi-step quantum secure direct communication protocol using blocks of multi-particle maximally entangled state is proposed. In this protocol, the particles in a Green-Horne-Zeilinger state are sent from Alice to Bob in batches in several steps. It has the advantage of high efficiency and high source capacity.
We present a controlled secure direct communication protocol by using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entangled state via swapping quantum entanglement and local unitary operations. Since messages transferred only by using local operations and a public channel after entangled states are successfully distributed, this protocol can protect the communication against a destroying-travel-qubit-type attack. This scheme can also be generalized to a multi-party control system.
In a recent letter, Barbosa et al [PRL 90, 227901(2003)] claim that secure communication is possible with bright coherent pulses, by using quantum noise to hide the data from an eavesdropper. We show here that the secrecy in the scheme of Barbosa et al is unrelated to quantum noise, but rather derives from the secret key that sender and receiver share beforehand.
We demonstrate that secure communication using coherent states is possible. The optimal eavesdropping strategy for an M-ry ciphering scheme shows that the minimum probability of error in a measurement for bit determination can be made arbitrarily close to the pure guessing value P_e=1/2. This ciphering scheme can be optically amplified without degrading the security level. New avenues are open to secure communications at high speeds in fiber-optic or free-space channels.
Recently, Hassanpour and Houshmand have proposed a protocol of controlled deterministic secure quantum communication (Quant. Info. Process, DOI 10.1007/s11128-014-0866-z (2014)). The authors compared the efficiency of their protocol with that of two other existing protocols and claimed that their protocol is efficient. Here, we have shown that the efficiency of Hassanpour Houshmand (HH) protocol is not high, and there exist several approaches through which more efficient protocols for the same task can be designed. To establish this point, we have proposed an efficient protocol of controlled d…
We report an experimental implementation of free-space quantum secure direct communication based on single photons. The quantum communication scheme uses phase encoding, and the asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer is optimized so as to automatically compensate phase drift of the photons during their transitions over the free-space medium. An information transmission rate of 500 bps over a 10-meter free space with a mean quantum bit error rate of 0.49%$\pm$0.27% is achieved. The security is analyzed under the scenario that Eve performs collective attack and photon number splitting collective…
Based on the two-step protocol [Phys. Rev. A68(03)042317], we propose a $(n,n)$-threshold multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol of secure direct communication. In our protocol only all the sharers collaborate can the sender's secure direct communication message be extracted. We show a variant version of this protocol based on the variant two-step protocol. This variant version can considerably reduce the realization difficulty in experiment. In contrast to the use of multi-particle GHZ states in the case that the sharer number is larger than 3, the use and identification of Bell states ar…
Using quantum mechanics, secure direct communication between distant parties can be performed. Over a noisy quantum channel, quantum privacy amplification is a necessary step to ensure the security of the message. In this paper, we present a quantum privacy amplification scheme for quantum secure direct communication using single photons. The quantum privacy amplification procedure contains two control-not gates and a Hadamard gate. After the unitary gate operations, a measurement is performed and one photon is retained. The retained photon carries the state information of the discarded photon…
In majority of protocols of secure quantum communication (such as, BB84, B92, etc.), the unconditional security of the protocols are obtained by using conjugate coding (two or more mutually unbiased bases). Initially all the conjugate-coding-based protocols of secure quantum communication were restricted to quantum key distribution (QKD), but later on they were extended to other cryptographic tasks (such as, secure direct quantum communication and quantum key agreement). In contrast to the conjugate-coding-based protocols, a few completely orthogonal-state-based protocols of unconditionally se…
We investigate the security of generalized quantum multiple-access channels. We provide the formula for the achievable rate region of secure communication in the scenario of two senders and a single receiver. We explicitly specify a protocol for secure communication in this scenario, which employs superdense coding. The protocol is based on the distribution of a tripartite GHZ state. It allows for both symmetric and asymmetric key distribution whereby one of the senders can have twice the capacity of the other sender. We prove the security of the protocol against general quantum attacks, analy…
We propose a multi-mode modulation scheme for Continuous Variable (CV) quantum communications, which we call quantum pattern encoding. In this setting, classical information can be encoded into multi-mode patterns of discretely-modulated coherent states, which form instances of a communicable image space. Communicators can devise arbitrarily complex encoding schemes which are degenerate and highly non-uniform, such that communication is likened to the task of pattern recognition. We explore initial communication schemes that exploit these techniques, and which lead to an increased encoding com…
In this paper, a three party controlled quantum secure direct communication protocol based on GHZ like state is proposed. In this scheme, the receiver can obtain the sender s two secret bits under the permission of the controller. By using entanglement swapping, no qubits carrying secret messages are transmitted. Therefore, if the perfect quantum channel is used, the protocol is completely secure. The motivation behind utilizing GHZ like state as a quantum channel is that if a qubit is lost in the GHZ like state the other two qubits are still entangled. The proposed protocol improves the effic…
Fast development of supercomputer and perspective quantum computer is posing increasing serious threats to communication security. Based on the laws of quantum mechanics, quantum communication offers provable security of communication, and is a promising solution to counter such threats. Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) is one of the important branches of quantum communication. Different from other branches of quantum communication, it transmits secret information directly. Recently, remarkable progress has been made in the proof-of-principle experimental demonstrations of QSDC. Howe…
We propose a class of quantum no-key protocols for private communication of classical message based on quantum computing of random Boolean permutations, and demonstrate that they are information-theoretic secure. These protocols are designed to resist middleman attack for two parties preshared authentication key, and achieve perfect mutual data origin authentication which ensures the permanent reusing of authentication key. Finally, we simplify the protocol to a 4-round one, and show that any protocol with 3 or less rounds cannot achieve perfect security without consuming preshared key.
We propose a protocol for deterministic communication that does not make use of entanglement. It exploits nonorthogonal states in a two-way quantum channel attaining significant improvement of security and efficiency over already known cryptographic protocols. The presented scheme, being deterministic, can be devoted to direct communication as well as to key distribution, and its experimental realization is feasible with present day technology.
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…
A novel scheme for secure direct communication between Alice and Bob is proposed, where there is no need for establishing a shared secret key. The communication is based on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs and teleportation between Alice and Bob. After insuring the security of the quantum channel (EPR pairs), Bob encodes the secret message directly on a sequence of particle states and transmits them to Alice by teleportation. In this scheme teleportation transmits Bob's message without revealing any information to a potential eavesdropper. Alice can read out the encoded messages directly by the m…
Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) can directly transmit secrete messages through quantum channel. Device-independent (DI) QSDC can guarantee the communication security relying only on the observation of the Bell inequality violation, but not on any detailed description or trust of the inner workings of users' devices. In the paper, we propose a DI-QSDC protocol with practical high-efficient single photon sources. The communication parties construct the entanglement channel from single photons by adopting the heralded architecture, which makes the message leakage rate independent of th…
We propose a two-way secure-communication protocol in which Alice uses an amplified spontaneous emission source while Bob employs binary phase-shift keying and an optical amplifier. Against an eavesdropper who captures all the light lost in fibers linking Alice and Bob, this protocol is capable of 3.5 Gbps quantum-secured direct communication at 50 km range. If Alice augments her terminal with a spontaneous parametric downconverter and both Alice and Bob add channel monitors, they can realize 2 Gbps quantum key distribution at that range against an eavesdropper who injects her own light into B…
We present a novel scheme for controlled quantum secure communication (CQSC) using GHZ-like state. In this scheme, a trusted controller assists the users for achieving secure transmission of data between them. The dense coding technique is exploited to increase the qubit efficiency and we show that the proposed scheme is immune against common eavesdropping attacks. We show how the method can be generalized to include N controllers using sets of GHZ-like states shared among the controllers and users. In this process entanglement swapping and single particle measurements are performed by the con…
No-cloning theorem, a profound fundamental principle of quantum mechanics, also provides a crucial practical basis for secure quantum communication. The security of communication can be ultimately guaranteed if the output fidelity via communication channel is above the no-cloning bound (NCB). In quantum communications using continuous-variable (CV) systems, Gaussian states, more specifically, coherent states have been widely studied as inputs, but less is known for non-Gaussian states. We aim at exploring quantum communication covering CV states comprehensively with distinct sets of unknown st…
We present a scheme for direct and confidential communication between Alice and Bob, where there is no need for establishing a shared secret key first, and where the key used by Alice even will become known publicly. The communication is based on the exchange of single photons and each and every photon transmits one bit of Alice's message without revealing any information to a potential eavesdropper.
"Device-independent" not only represents a relaxation of the security assumptions about the internal working of the quantum devices, but also can enhance the security of the quantum communication. In the paper, we put forward the first device-independent quantum secure direct communication (DI-QSDC) protocol, where no assumptions are made about the way the devices work or on what quantum system they operate. We show that in the absence of noise, the DI-QSDC protocol is absolutely secure and there is no limitation for the communication distance. However, under practical noisy quantum channel co…
A scheme for quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) network is proposed with a sequence of polarized single photons. The single photons are prepared originally in the same state |0> by the servers on the network, which will reduce the difficulty for the legitimate users to check eavesdropping largely. The users code the information on the single photons with two unitary operations which do not change their measuring bases. Some decoy photons, which are produced by operating the sample photons with a Hadamard, are used for preventing a potentially dishonest server from eavesdropping the qua…
A theoretical scheme for controlled and secure direct communication is proposed. The communication is based on GHZ state and controlled quantum teleportation. After insuring the security of the quantum channel (a set of qubits in the GHZ state), Alice encodes the secret message directly on a sequence of particle states and transmits them to Bob supervised by Charlie using controlled quantum teleportation. Bob can read out the encoded messages directly by the measurement on his qubits. In this scheme, the controlled quantum teleportation transmits Alice's message without revealing any informati…
