Quantum digital signatures (QDS) exploit quantum laws to guarantee non-repudiation, unforgeability and transferability of messages with information-theoretic security. Current QDS protocols face two major restrictions, including the requirement of the symmetrization step with additional secure classical channels and quadratic scaling of the signature rate with the probability of detection events. Here, we present an efficient QDS protocol to overcome these issues by utilizing the classical post-processing operation called post-matching method. Our protocol does not need the symmetrization step, and the signature rate scales linearly with the probability of detection events. Simulation results show that the signature rate is three orders of magnitude higher than the original protocol in a 100-km-long fiber. This protocol is compatible with existing quantum communication infrastructure, therefore we anticipate that it will play a significant role in providing digital signatures with unconditional security.
Digital signatures are the building blocks of modern communication to prevent masquerading by any party other than recipients, repudiation by signatory and forgery by any individual recipient. Digital signature scheme is said to be standard if the signature (a) is a pattern depending upon the message to be signed, (b) is built upon some information publically known and unique to the signatory, (c) can be stored by all the recipients. While classical methods provide computational security only, quantum mechanics guarantees information-theoretically secure and standard digital signature schemes.…
Digital signatures guarantee the authenticity and transferability of messages, and are widely used in modern communication. The security of currently used classical digital signature schemes, however, relies on computational assumptions. In contrast, quantum digital signature (QDS) schemes offer information-theoretic security guaranteed by the laws of quantum mechanics. We present two QDS protocols which have the same experimental requirements as quantum key distribution, which is already commercially available. We also present the first security proof for any QDS scheme against coherent forgi…
We present an experimental realization of a quantum digital signature protocol which, together with a standard quantum key distribution link, increases transmission distance to kilometre ranges, three orders of magnitude larger than in previous realizations. The bit-rate is also significantly increased compared with previous quantum signature demonstrations. This work illustrates that quantum digital signatures can be realized with optical components similar to those used for quantum key distribution, and could be implemented in existing optical fiber networks.
Digital signature scheme is commonly employed in modern electronic commerce and quantum digital signature (QDS) offers the information-theoretical security by the laws of quantum mechanics against attackers with unreasonable computation resources. The focus of previous QDS was on the signature of 1-bit message. In contrast, based on quantum ghost imaging with security test, we propose a scheme of QDS in which a multi-bit message can be signed at a time. Our protocol is no more demanding than the traditional cases for the requirements of quantum resources and classical communications. The multi…
Guaranteeing nonrepudiation, unforgeability as well as transferability of a signature is one of the most vital safeguards in today's e-commerce era. Based on fundamental laws of quantum physics, quantum digital signature (QDS) aims to provide information-theoretic security for this cryptographic task. However, up to date, the previously proposed QDS protocols are impractical due to various challenging problems and most importantly, the requirement of authenticated (secure) quantum channels between participants. Here, we present the first quantum digital signature protocol that removes the assu…
A quantum digital signature protocol based on quantum mechanics is proposed in this paper. The security of the protocol relies on the existence of quantum one-way functions by quantum information theorem. This protocol involves a so-called arbitrator who validates and authenticates the signed message. In this protocol, we use privacy key algorithm to ensure the security of quantum information on channel and use quantum public keys to sign message. To guarantee the authenticity of the message, a family of quantum stabilizer codes are employed. Our protocol presents a novel method to construct u…
Digital signatures ensure the integrity of a classical message and the authenticity of its sender. Despite their far-reaching use in modern communication, currently used signature schemes rely on computational assumptions and will be rendered insecure by a quantum computer. We present a quantum digital signatures (QDS) scheme whose security is instead based on the impossibility of perfectly and deterministically distinguishing between quantum states. Our continuous-variable (CV) scheme relies on phase measurement of a distributed alphabet of coherent states, and allows for secure message authe…
Quantum digital signatures apply quantum mechanics to the problem of guaranteeing message integrity and non-repudiation with information-theoretical security, which are complementary to the confidentiality realized by quantum key distribution. Previous experimental demonstrations have been limited to transmission distances of less than 5-km of optical fiber in a laboratory setting. Here we report the first demonstration of quantum digital signatures over installed optical fiber as well as the longest transmission link reported to date. This demonstration used a 90-km long differential phase sh…
We introduce a variant of quantum signatures in which nonbinary symbols are signed instead of bits. The public keys are fingerprinting states, just as in the scheme of Gottesman and Chuang, but we allow for multiple ways to reveal the private key partially. The effect of this modification is a reduction of the number of qubits expended per message bit. We give a security proof and we present numerical results that show how the improvement in public key size depends on the message length.
Quantum digital signatures (QDS) provide a means for signing electronic communications with informationtheoretic security. However, all previous demonstrations of quantum digital signatures assume trusted measurement devices. This renders them vulnerable against detector side-channel attacks, just like quantum key distribution. Here, we exploit a measurement-device-independent (MDI) quantum network, over a 200-square-kilometer metropolitan area, to perform a field test of a three-party measurement-device-independent quantum digital signature (MDI-QDS) scheme that is secure against any detector…
Quantum digital signature (QDS) guarantee the unforgeability, nonrepudiation and transferability of signature messages with information-theoretical security, and hence has attracted much attention recently. However, most previous implementations of QDS showed relatively low signature rates or/and short transmission distance. In this paper, we report a proof-of-principle phase-encoding QDS demonstration using only one decoy state. Firstly, such method avoids the modulation of vacuum state, thus reducing experimental complexity and random number consumption. Moreover, incorporating with low-loss…
Digital signatures can guarantee the unforgeability and transferability of the message. Different from classical digital signatures, whose security depends on computational complexity, quantum digital signatures (QDS) can provide information-theoretic security. We propose a general method of random pairing QDS (RP-QDS), which can drastically improve QDS efficiency. In a way, our random pairing method provide a tightened result of security level of QDS. In the method, the parity value of each pair is used for the outcome bit value. We present general formulas for fraction of untagged bits and e…
Digital signatures play an important role in software distribution, modern communication and financial transactions, where it is important to detect forgery and tampering. Signatures are a cryptographic technique for validating the authenticity and integrity of messages, software, or digital documents. The security of currently used classical schemes relies on computational assumptions. Quantum digital signatures (QDS), on the other hand, provide information-theoretic security based on the laws of quantum physics. Recent work on QDS shows that such schemes do not require trusted quantum channe…
Digital signature is a key technique in information security, especially for identity authentications. Compared with classical correspondence, quantum digital signatures (QDSs) provide a considerably higher level of security, i.e., information-theoretic security. At present, its performance is limited by key generation protocols (e.g., BB84 or measurement-device-independent protocols), which are fundamentally limited in terms of channel capacity. Fortunately, the recently proposed twin-field quantum key distribution can overcome this limit. This paper presents a twin-field QDS protocol and det…
We present a quantum digital signature scheme whose security is based on fundamental principles of quantum physics. It allows a sender (Alice) to sign a message in such a way that the signature can be validated by a number of different people, and all will agree either that the message came from Alice or that it has been tampered with. To accomplish this task, each recipient of the message must have a copy of Alice's "public key," which is a set of quantum states whose exact identity is known only to Alice. Quantum public keys are more difficult to deal with than classical public keys: for ins…
Quantum Digital Signatures (QDS) allow for the exchange of messages from one sender to multiple recipients, with the guarantee that messages cannot be forged or tampered with. Additionally, messages cannot be repudiated -- if one recipient accepts a message, she is guaranteed that others will accept the same message as well. While messaging with these types of security guarantees are routinely performed in the modern digital world, current technologies only offer security under computational assumptions. QDS, on the other hand, offer security guaranteed by quantum mechanics. All thus far propo…
Quantum digital signature (QDS) is an approach to guarantee the nonrepudiation, unforgeability and transferability of a signature with the information-theoretical security. All previous experimental realizations of QDS relied on an unrealistic assumption of secure channels and the longest distance is only several kilometers. Here, we have experimentally demonstrated a recently proposed QDS protocol without any secure channel. Exploiting the decoy state modulation, we have successfully signed one bit message through up to 102 km optical fiber. Furthermore, we continuously run the system to sign…
We propose and experimentally implement a novel reconfigurable quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme, where the users can switch in real time between conventional QKD and the recently-introduced measurement-device-independent (MDI) QKD. Through this setup, we demonstrate the distribution of quantum keys between three remote parties connected by only two quantum channels, a previously unattempted task. Moreover, as a prominent application, we extract the first quantum digital signature (QDS) rates from a network that uses a measurement-device-independent link. In so doing, we introduce an effic…
Digital signatures are widely used to provide security for electronic communications, for example in financial transactions and electronic mail. Currently used classical digital signature schemes, however, only offer security relying on unproven computational assumptions. In contrast, quantum digital signatures (QDS) offer information-theoretic security based on laws of quantum mechanics (e.g. Gottesman and Chuang 2001). Here, security against forging relies on the impossibility of perfectly distinguishing between non-orthogonal quantum states. A serious drawback of previous QDS schemes is how…
Quantum digital signatures (QDSs) promise information-theoretic security against repudiation and forgery of messages. Compared with currently existing three-party QDS protocols, multiparty protocols have unique advantages in the practical case of more than two receivers when sending a mass message. However, complex security analysis, numerous quantum channels and low data utilization efficiency make it intractable to expand three-party to multiparty scenario. Here, based on six-state non-orthogonal encoding protocol, we propose an effective multiparty QDS framework to overcome these difficulti…
Quantum digital signature combines quantum theory with classical digital signature. The main goal of this field is to take advantage of quantum effects to provide unconditionally secure signature. We present a quantum signature scheme with message recovery without using entangle effect. The most important property of the proposed scheme is that it is not necessary for the scheme to use Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. The present scheme utilizes single photons to achieve the aim of signature and verification. The security of the scheme relies on the quantum one-time pad and quantum key dist…
High-rate quantum digital signatures over 250 km of optical fiber
Guangxi University（广西大学）；The 34th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation（中国电子科技集团公司第三十四研究所）；Ji Hua Laboratory（季华实验室）；Renmin University of China（中国人民大学）
Currently used digital signatures based on asymmetric cryptography will be vulnerable to quantum computers running Shor's algorithm. In this work, we propose a new quantum-assisted digital signature protocol based on symmetric keys generated by QKD, that allows signing and verifying messages in a simple way implementing an integration of currently available classical and quantum technologies. The protocol is described for a three-user scenario composed of one sender and two receivers. In contrast to previous schemes, it is independent of the message length. The security of the protocol has bee…
Digital signatures are frequently used in data transfer to prevent impersonation, repudiation and message tampering. Currently used classical digital signature schemes rely on public key encryption techniques, where the complexity of so-called "one-way" mathematical functions is used to provide security over sufficiently long timescales. No mathematical proofs are known for the long-term security of such techniques. Quantum digital signatures offer a means of sending a message which cannot be forged or repudiated, with security verified by information-theoretical limits and quantum mechanics. …
The ability to know and verifiably demonstrate the origins of messages can often be as important as encrypting the message itself. Here we present an experimental demonstration of an unconditionally secure digital signature (USS) protocol implemented for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, on a fully connected quantum network without trusted nodes. Our USS protocol is secure against forging, repudiation and messages are transferrable. We show the feasibility of unconditionally secure signatures using only bi-partite entangled states distributed throughout the network and experimental…
Quantum candies (qandies) is a pedagogical simple model which describes many concepts from quantum information processing (QIP) intuitively, without the need to understand or make use of superpositions, and without the need of using complex algebra. One of the topics in quantum cryptography which gains research attention in recent years is quantum digital signatures (QDS), involving protocols to securely sign classical bits using quantum methods. In this paper we show how the "qandy model" can be used to describe three QDS protocols, in order to provide an important and potentially practical e…
A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity of a digital message or document. For signing quantum messages, some arbitrated quantum signature schemes have being proposed. However, in the existing literature, arbitrated quantum signature schemes depend on entanglement. In this paper, we present two arbitrated quantum signature schemes without utilizing entangled states in the signing phase and the verifying phase. The first proposed scheme can preserve the merits in the existing schemes. Then, we point out, in this scheme and the prior schemes, there exists a…
Signatures are primarily used as a mark of authenticity, to demonstrate that the sender of a message is who they claim to be. In the current digital age, signatures underpin trust in the vast majority of information that we exchange, particularly on public networks such as the internet. However, schemes for signing digital information which are based on assumptions of computational complexity are facing challenges from advances in mathematics, the capability of computers, and the advent of the quantum era. Here we present a review of digital signature schemes, looking at their origins and wher…
An authentic digital signature scheme based on the correlation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states was presented. In this scheme, by performing a local unitary operation on the third particles of each GHZ triplet, Alice can encode message M and get its signature S. Bob performs CNOT operation on the combined GHZ triplets can recovery the message M and directly authenticates Alice's signature S. Our scheme was designed to use quantum secret key to guaranteed unconditional security, as well as use quantum fingerprinting to avoid trick attacks and reduce communication complexity.
Commit-and-open Sigma-protocols are a popular class of protocols for constructing non-interactive zero-knowledge arguments and digital-signature schemes via the Fiat-Shamir transformation. Instantiated with hash-based commitments, the resulting non-interactive schemes enjoy tight online-extractability in the random oracle model. Online extractability improves the tightness of security proofs for the resulting digital-signature schemes by avoiding lossy rewinding or forking-lemma based extraction. In this work, we prove tight online extractability in the quantum random oracle model (QROM), show…
Digital signatures guarantee the authorship of electronic communications. Currently used "classical" signature schemes rely on unproven computational assumptions for security, while quantum signatures rely only on the laws of quantum mechanics. Previous quantum signature schemes have used unambiguous quantum measurements. Such measurements, however, sometimes give no result, reducing the efficiency of the protocol. Here, we instead use heterodyne detection, which always gives a result, although there is always some uncertainty. We experimentally demonstrate feasibility in a real environment by…
Digital signatures are widely used in modern communication to guarantee authenticity and transferability of messages, The security of currently used classical schemes relies on computational assumptions. We present a quantum signature scheme that does not require trusted quantum channels. We prove that it is unconditionally secure against the most general coherent attacks, and show that it requires the transmission of significantly fewer quantum states than previous schemes. We also show that the quantum channel noise threshold for our scheme is less strict than for distilling a secure key usi…
Signature schemes, proposed in 1976 by Diffie and Hellman, have become ubiquitous across modern communications. They allow for the exchange of messages from one sender to multiple recipients, with the guarantees that messages cannot be forged or tampered with and that messages also can be forwarded from one recipient to another without compromising their validity. Signatures are different from, but no less important than encryption, which ensures the privacy of a message. Commonly used signature protocols - signatures based on the Rivest-Adleman-Shamir (RSA) algorithm, the digital signature al…
The fisherman caught a quantum fish. "Fisherman, please let me go", begged the fish, "and I will grant you three wishes". The fisherman agreed. The fish gave the fisherman a quantum computer, three quantum signing tokens and his classical public key. The fish explained: "to sign your three wishes, use the tokenized signature scheme on this quantum computer, then show your valid signature to the king, who owes me a favor". The fisherman used one of the signing tokens to sign the document "give me a castle!" and rushed to the palace. The king executed the classical verification algorithm using t…
Digital signatures are widely used for providing security of communications. At the same time, the security of currently deployed digital signature protocols is based on unproven computational assumptions. An efficient way to ensure an unconditional (information-theoretic) security of communication is to use quantum key distribution (QKD), whose security is based on laws of quantum mechanics. In this work, we develop an unconditionally secure signature scheme that guarantees authenticity and transferability of arbitrary length messages in a QKD network. In the proposed setup, the QKD network c…
In the classical world, the existence of commitments is equivalent to the existence of one-way functions. In the quantum setting, on the other hand, commitments are not known to imply one-way functions, but all known constructions of quantum commitments use at least one-way functions. Are one-way functions really necessary for commitments in the quantum world? In this work, we show that non-interactive quantum commitments (for classical messages) with computational hiding and statistical binding exist if pseudorandom quantum states exist. Pseudorandom quantum states are sets of quantum states …
