There is a big gap between theory and practice in quantum key distribution (QKD) because real devices do not satisfy the assumptions required by the security proofs. Here, we close this gap by introducing a simple and practical measurement-device-independent (MDI) QKD type of protocol, based on the transmission of coherent light, for which we prove its security against any possible device imperfection and/or side-channel at the transmitters' side. Besides using a much simpler experimental set-up and source characterization with only one single parameter, we show that the performance of the protocol is comparable to other MDI-QKD type of protocols which disregard the effect of several side-channels.
Practical Phase-Coding Side-Channel-Secure Quantum Key Distribution
CAS Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学院量子信息重点实验室，中国科学技术大学）；CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学院量子信息与量子物理学前沿卓越中心，中国科学技术大学）；State Key Laboratory of Cryptology（密码学国家重点实验室）
In this paper, we show that the zero-knowledge construction for Hamiltonian cycle remains secure against quantum adversaries in the relativistic setting. Our main technical contribution is a tool for studying the action of consecutive measurements on a quantum state which in turn gives upper bounds on the value of some entangled games. This allows us to prove the security of our protocol against quantum adversaries. We also prove security bounds for the (single-round) relativistic string commitment and bit commitment in parallel against quantum adversaries. As an additional consequence of our …
Quantum key distribution can provide unconditionally secure key exchange for remote users in theory. In practice, however, in most quantum key distribution systems, quantum hackers might steal the secure keys by listening to the side channels in the source, such as the photon frequency spectrum, emission time, propagation direction, spatial angular momentum, and so on. It is hard to prevent such kinds of attacks because side channels may exist in any of the encoding space whether the designers take care of or not. Here we report an experimental realization of a side-channel-free quantum key di…
A general study of arbitrary finite-size coherent attacks against continuous-variable quantum cryptographic schemes is presented. It is shown that, if the size of the blocks that can be coherently attacked by an eavesdropper is fixed and much smaller than the key size, then the optimal attack for a given signal-to-noise ratio in the transmission line is an individual gaussian attack. Consequently, non-gaussian coherent attacks do not need to be considered in the security analysis of such quantum cryptosystems.
By carrying out measurements on entangled states, two parties can generate a secret key which is secure not only against an eavesdropper bound by the laws of quantum mechanics, but also against a hypothetical "post-quantum" eavesdroppers limited by the no-signalling principle only. We introduce a family of quantum key distribution protocols of this type, which are more efficient than previous ones, both in terms of key rate and noise resistance. Interestingly, the best protocols involve large number of measurements. We show that in the absence of noise, these protocols can yield one secret bit…
Based on the idea that there is no side channel in the vacuum state, the side-channel-free quantum key distribution (SCFQKD) protocol was proposed, which is immune to all attacks in the source side-channel space and all attacks in the detectors. In the original SCFQKD protocol, an important assumption is that Alice and Bob can produce the perfect vacuum pulses. But due to the finite extinction ratio of the intensity modulators, the perfect vacuum pulse is impossible in practice. In this paper, we solve this problem and make the quantum key distribution side-channel secure with real source devi…
So far, most of existed single-shot quantum coin flipping(QCF) protocols failed in a noisy quantum channel. Here, we present a nested-structured framework that makes it possible to achieve partially noise-tolerant QCF, due to that there is a trade-off between the security and the justice correctness. It is showed that noise-tolerant single-shot QCF protocols can be produced by filling the presented framework up with existed or even future protocols. We also proved a lower bound of 0.25, with which a cheating Alice or Bob could bias the outcome.
We further study the security of the quantum bit commitment (QBC) protocol we previously proposed [Phys. Rev. A 74, 022332 (2006).], by analyzing the reduced density matrix ρ_{b}^{B} which describes the quantum state at Bob's side corresponding to Alice's committed bit b. It is shown that Alice will find ρ_{0}^{B}\perp ρ_{1}^{B} while the protocol remains concealing to Bob. On the contrary, the existing no-go theorem of unconditionally secure QBC is based on the condition ρ_{0}^{B}\simeq ρ_{1}^{B}. Thus the specific cheating strategy proposed in the no-go theorem does not necessarily applies t…
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.
In this paper, we build upon the model of two-party quantum computation introduced by Salvail et al. [SSS09] and show that in this model, only trivial correct two-party quantum protocols are weakly self-composable. We do so by defining a protocol Π, calling any non-trivial sub-protocol πN times and showing that there is a quantum honest-but-curious strategy that cannot be modeled by acting locally in every single copy of π. In order to achieve this, we assign a real value called "payoff" to any strategy for Πand show that that there is a gap between the highest payoff achievable by coherent an…
An efficiency-loophole-free quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme is proposed, which involves no hardware change but a modification in the data post-processing step. The scheme applies to a generic class of detection systems which allow correlations between the detection efficiency and the outcomes. We study the system transmittance and the detection error rate that allow implementing this scheme. We also consider the case that a quantum memory is used to boost the performance and investigate the criteria of the readout probability. The simulation result shows that the lowest tolerable system …
Quantum key distribution (QKD) permits information-theoretically secure transmission of digital encryption keys, assuming that the behaviour of the devices employed for the key exchange can be reliably modelled and predicted. Remarkably, no assumptions have to be made on the capabilities of an eavesdropper other than that she is bounded by the laws of Nature, thus making the security of QKD "unconditional". However, unconditional security is hard to achieve in practice. For example, any experimental realisation can only collect finite data samples, leading to vulnerabilities against coherent a…
Decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) has convincingly been shown the core solution to secure key exchange. While standard BB84 protocol needs to prepare and measure all states of two complementary bases, which seriously restricts its real life applications in photonic integration and high speed system. Fortunately, a simplified BB84, only sending and receiving three states, achieves the same asymptotic secret key rate compared with standard BB84 under coherent attacks. In this work, by skillfully exploiting uncertainty relation for smooth entropies, we provide the finite-key security bou…
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…
In principle, quantum key distribution (QKD) offers information-theoretic security based on the laws of physics. In practice, however, the imperfections of realistic devices might introduce deviations from the idealized models used in security analyses. Can quantum code-breakers successfully hack real systems by exploiting the side channels? Can quantum code-makers design innovative counter-measures to foil quantum code-breakers? This article reviews theoretical and experimental progress in the practical security aspects of quantum code-making and quantum code-breaking. After numerous attempts…
The finite key effect of side-channel-secure quantum key distribution beyond post-selection technique
Jinan Institute of Quantum Technology and Jinan branch, Hefei National Laboratory（济南量子技术研究院与合肥国家实验室济南分部）；State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, and Frontier Science Center for Quantum Information（清华大学物理系低维量子物理国家重点实验室及前沿科学中心量子信息）；Data Communication Science and Technology Research Institute（数据通信科学技术研究所）；International Quantum Academy（国际量子学院）
Experimental Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols have to consist of not only the unconditionally secure quantum transmission, but also a subsequent classical exchange that enables key reconciliation and error correction. There is a large body of work examining quantum attacks on the quantum channel, but here we begin to examine classical attacks to both the classical communication and the exchange as a whole. Linking together separate secure protocols can unexpectedly leak information to an eavesdropper, even if the components are unconditionally secure in isolation. Here we focus specifi…
In this paper, we propose a two-party semiquantum summation protocol, where two classical users can accomplish the summation of their private binary sequences with the assistance of a quantum semi-honest third party (TP). The term 'semi-honest' implies that TP cannot conspire with others but is able to implement all kinds oof attacks. This protocol employs logical qubits as traveling particles to overcome the negative influence of collective-dephasing noise and needn't make any two parties pre-share a random secret key. The security analysis turns out that this protocol can effectively prevent…
We initiate the study of multi-source extractors in the quantum world. In this setting, our goal is to extract random bits from two independent weak random sources, on which two quantum adversaries store a bounded amount of information. Our main result is a two-source extractor secure against quantum adversaries, with parameters closely matching the classical case and tight in several instances. Moreover, the extractor is secure even if the adversaries share entanglement. The construction is the Chor-Goldreich [CG88] two-source inner product extractor and its multi-bit variant by Dodis et al. …
Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) and deterministic secure quantum communication (DSQC) are two important branches of quantum cryptography, where one can transmit a secret message securely without encrypting it by a prior key. In the practical scenario, an adversary can apply detector-side-channel attacks to get some non-negligible amount of information about the secret message. Measurement-device-independent (MDI) quantum protocols can remove this kind of detector-side-channel attack, by introducing an untrusted third party (UTP), who performs all the measurements during the protocol…
Two-way fiber-optic time transfer is a promising precise time synchronization technique with sub-nanosecond accuracy. However, asymmetric delay attack is a serious threat which cannot be prevent by any encryption method. In this paper, a dynamic model based scheme is proposed to defense the sub-nanosecond asymmetric delay attack. A threshold is set according to the estimated time difference by a two-state clock model where the fixed frequency difference is excluded from the time difference to detect the asymmetric delay attack which is smaller than the time difference induced by the fixed freq…
The unique features of quantum walk, such as the possibility of the walker to be in superposition ofthe position space and get entangled with the position space, provides inherent advantages that canbe captured to design highly secure quantum communication protocols. Here we propose two quan-tum direct communication protocols, a Quantum Secure Direct Communication (QSDC) protocoland a Controlled Quantum Dialogue (CQD) protocol using discrete-time quantum walk on a cycle.The proposed protocols are unconditionally secure against various attacks such as the intercept-resend attack, the denial of …
In quantum weak oblivious transfer, Alice sends Bob two bits and Bob can learn one of the bits at his choice. It was found that the security of such a protocol is bounded by $2P_{Alice}^{\ast }+P_{Bob}^{\ast }\geq 2$, where $P_{Alice}^{\ast }$ is the probability with which Alice can guess Bob's choice, and $P_{Bob}^{\ast }$ is the probability with which Bob can guess both of Alice's bits\ given that he learns one of the bits with certainty. Here we propose a protocol and show that as long as Alice is restricted to individual measurements, then both $P_{Alice}^{\ast }$ and $P_{Bob}^{\ast }$ can…
Device independent quantum key distribution aims to provide a higher degree of security than traditional QKD schemes by reducing the number of assumptions that need to be made about the physical devices used. The previous proof of security by Pironio et al. applies only to collective attacks where the state is identical and independent and the measurement devices operate identically for each trial in the protocol. We extend this result to a more general class of attacks where the state is arbitrary and the measurement devices have no memory. We accomplish this by a reduction of arbitrary adver…
We present a security proof for establishing private entanglement by means of recurrence-type entanglement distillation protocols over noisy quantum channels. We consider protocols where the local devices are imperfect, and show that nonetheless a confidential quantum channel can be established, and used to e.g. perform distributed quantum computation in a secure manner. While our results are not fully device independent (which we argue to be unachievable in settings with quantum outputs), our proof holds for arbitrary channel noise and noisy local operations, and even in the case where the ea…
Noise Resilience of Quantum Key Distribution Protocols Secured Against Independent Attacks With One-Way Communication
VSB–Technical University of Ostrava（俄斯特拉发理工大学）；IT4Innovations, VSB–Technical University of Ostrava（俄斯特拉发理工大学 IT4创新研究院）；Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics, Polish Academy of Sciences（波兰科学院理论与应用信息学研究所）
Side-channel-secure quantum key distribution with correlated sources
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学量子信息实验室）；Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Quantum Network, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学安徽省量子网络重点实验室）；CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学中国科学院量子信息与量子物理前沿卓越中心）
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 propose a quantum authentication protocol that is robust against the theft of secret keys. In the protocol, disposable quantum passwords prevent impersonation attacks with stolen secret keys. The protocol also prevents the leakage of secret information of a certification agent.
Modern communication strives towards provably secure systems which can be widely deployed. Quantum key distribution provides a methodology to verify the integrity and security of a key exchange based on physical laws. However, physical systems often fall short of theoretical models, meaning they can be compromised through uncharacterized side-channels. The complexity of detection means that the measurement system is a vulnerable target for an adversary. Here, we present secure key exchange up to 200 km while removing all side-channels from the measurement system. We use mass-manufacturable, mo…
We present a quantum-public-key identification protocol and show that it is secure against a computationally-unbounded adversary. This demonstrates for the first time that unconditionally-secure and reusable public-key authentication is possible in principle with (pure-state) public keys.
Relativistic cryptography is a proposal for achieving unconditional security that exploits the fact that no information carrier can travel faster than the speed of light. It is based on space-time constraints but doesn't require quantum hardware. Nevertheless, it was unclear whether this proposal is realistic or not. Recently, Alikhani et al. [ABC+21] performed an implementation of a relativistic zero-knowledge for NP. Their implemented scheme shows the feasibility of relativistic cryptography but it is only secure against classical adversaries. In this work, we present a new relativistic prot…
The fairness of a secure multi-party quantum key agreement (MQKA) protocol requires that all involved parties are entirely peer entities and can equally influence the outcome of the protocol to establish a shared key wherein no one can decide the shared key alone. However, it is found that parts of the existing MQKA protocols are sensitive to collusion attacks, i.e., some of the dishonest participants can collaborate to predetermine the final key without being detected. In this paper, a multi-party QKA protocol resisting collusion attacks is proposed. Different from previous QKA protocol resis…
Knowledge extraction, typically studied in the classical setting, is at the heart of several cryptographic protocols. We introduce the notion of secure quantum extraction protocols. A secure quantum extraction protocol for an NP relation $\mathcal{R}$ is a classical interactive protocol between a sender and a receiver, where the sender gets the instance $z$ and a witness $w$, while the receiver only gets the instance $z$. For any efficient quantum adversarial sender (who follows the protocol but can choose its own randomness), there exists a quantum extractor that can extract a witness $w'$ su…
Secure multi-party computation (SMPC) protocols allow several parties that distrust each other to collectively compute a function on their inputs. In this paper, we introduce a protocol that lifts classical SMPC to quantum SMPC in a composably and statistically secure way, even for a single honest party. Unlike previous quantum SMPC protocols, our proposal only requires very limited quantum resources from all but one party; it suffices that the weak parties, i.e. the clients, are able to prepare single-qubit states in the X-Y plane. The novel quantum SMPC protocol is constructed in a naturally…
Quantum random number generators (QRNGs) are able to generate numbers that are certifiably random, even to an agent who holds some side-information. Such systems typically require that the elements being used are precisely calibrated and validly certified for a credible security analysis. However, this can be experimentally challenging and result in potential side-channels which could compromise the security of the QRNG. In this work, we propose, design and experimentally demonstrate a QRNG protocol that completely removes the calibration requirement for the measurement device. Moreover, our p…
The position of a device or agent is an important security credential in today's society, both online and in the real world. Unless in direct proximity, however, the secure verification of a position is impossible without further assumptions. This is true classically, but also in any future quantum-equipped communications infrastructure. We show in this work that minimal quantum resources, in the form of a single qubit, combined with classical communication are sufficient to thwart quantum adversaries that pretend to be at a specific position and have the ability to coordinate their action wit…
The information theoretically secure Kirchhoff-law-Johnson-noise (KLJN) key exchange scheme, similarly to quantum key distribution (QKD), is also potentially vulnerable against clock attacks, where Eve takes over the control of clock synchronization in the channel. This short note aims to introduce a time synchronization protocol scheme for Alice and Bob, which is resistant against arbitrary time delay attacks, both symmetric and asymmetric ones. We propose and explore various ways of clock synchronization for the KLJN system and propose an ultimate protocol that preserves time and hardware in…
Quantum conference is a process of securely exchanging messages between three or more parties, using quantum resources. A Measurement Device Independent Quantum Dialogue (MDI-QD) protocol, which is secure against information leakage, has been proposed (Quantum Information Processing 16.12 (2017): 305) in 2017, is proven to be insecure against intercept-and-resend attack strategy. We first modify this protocol and generalize this MDI-QD to a three-party quantum conference and then to a multi-party quantum conference. We also propose a protocol for quantum multi-party XOR computation. None of th…
