In this paper, a novel hybrid protocol for semiquantum key distribution (SQKD) and semiquantum secret sharing (SQSS) was constructed by using GHZ-like states. This protocol is capable of establishing two different private keys between one quantum party and two semiquantum parties respectively, and making two semiquantum parties share another private key of the quantum party in the meanwhile. The usages of delay lines, Pauli operations, Hadamard gates and quantum entanglement swapping are not required. Moreover, the semiquantum parties are not necessary to be equipped with any quantum memory. We validate in detail that this protocol resists various attacks from Eve, including the Trojan horse attacks, the entangle-measure attack, the double controlled-not (CNOT) attacks, the measure-resend attack and the intercept-resend attack. To our best knowledge, this protocol is the only protocol which possesses the functions of both SQKD and SQSS simultaneously until now.
Recently, Boyer et al. presented a novel semiquantum key distribution protocol [M. Boyer, D. Kenigsberg, and T. Mor, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 140501 (2007)], in which quantum Alice shares a secret key with classical Bob. Li et al. proposed two semiquantum secret sharing protocols [Q. Li, W. H. Chan, and D. Y. Long, Phys. Rev. A 82, 022303 (2010)] by using maximally entangled Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. In this paper, we present a semiquantum secret sharing protocol by using two-particle entangled states in which quantum Alice shares a secret key with two classical parties, Bob and Charlie.…
In this paper, a semiquantum secret sharing (SQSS) protocol based on x-type states is proposed, which can accomplish the goal that only when two classical communicants cooperate together can they extract the shared secret key of a quantum communicant. Detailed security analysis turns out that this protocol is completely robust against an eavesdropper. This protocol has some merits: (1) it only requires one kind of quantum entangled state as the initial quantum resource; (2) it doesn't employ quantum entanglement swapping or unitary operations; and (3) it needn't share private keys among differ…
Recently, Boyer et al. presented a novel semiquantum key distribution protocol [M. Boyer, D. Kenigsberg, and T. Mor, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 140501 (2007)], by using four quantum states, each of which is randomly prepared by Z basis or X basis. Here we present a semiquantum key distribution protocol by using entangled states in which quantum Alice shares a secret key with classical Bob. We also show the protocol is secure against eavesdropping.
Recently, Li et al. [Phys. Rev. A, 82(2), 022303] presented two semi-quantum secret sharing (SQSS) protocols using GHZ-like states. The proposed schemes are rather practical because only the secret dealer requires to equip with advanced quantum devices such as quantum memory, whereas the other agents can merely perform classical operations to complete the secret sharing. However, this study points out that a security pitfall exists in the eavesdropping check phase of both schemes that could mount to an Intercept-resend attack and a Trojan horse attack on the two schemes, respectively, to discl…
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…
Semiquantum key distribution allows a quantum party to share a random key with a "classical" party who only can prepare and measure qubits in the computational basis or reorder some qubits when he has access to a quantum channel. In this work, we present a protocol where a secret key can be established between a quantum user and an almost classical user who only needs the quantum ability to access quantum channels, by securely delegating quantum computation to a quantum server. We show the proposed protocol is robust even when the delegated quantum server is a powerful adversary, and is experi…
Quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols make it possible for two quantum parties to generate a secret shared key. Semiquantum key distribution (SQKD) protocols, such as "QKD with classical Bob" and "QKD with classical Alice" (that have both been proven robust), achieve this goal even if one of the parties is classical. However, existing SQKD protocols are not experimentally feasible with current technology. Here we suggest a new protocol, "Classical Alice with a controllable mirror", that can be experimentally implemented with current technology (using 4-level systems instead of qubits), and …
A semiquantum key distribution (SQKD) protocol makes it possible for a quantum party and a classical party to generate a secret shared key. However, many existing SQKD protocols are not experimentally feasible in a secure way using current technology. An experimentally feasible SQKD protocol, "classical Alice with a controllable mirror" (the "Mirror protocol"), has recently been presented and proved completely robust, but it is more complicated than other SQKD protocols. Here we prove a simpler variant of the Mirror protocol (the "simplified Mirror protocol") to be completely non-robust by pre…
Quantum secret sharing allows each player to have classical information for secret sharing in quantum mechanical ways. In this work, we construct a class of quantum states on which players can quantumly perform secret sharing secure against dishonest players as well as eavesdropper. We here call them the genuine secret-sharing states. In addition, we show that if $N$ players share an $N$-party genuine secret-sharing state, then arbitrary $M$ players out of the total players can share an $M$-party genuine secret-sharing state by means of local operations and classical communication on the state…
In this paper we investigate the use of quantum information to share classical secrets. While every quantum secret sharing scheme is a quantum error correcting code, the converse is not true. Motivated by this we sought to find quantum codes which can be converted to secret sharing schemes. If we are interested in sharing classical secrets using quantum information, then we show that a class of pure $[[n,1,d]]_q$ CSS codes can be converted to perfect secret sharing schemes. These secret sharing schemes are perfect in the sense the unauthorized parties do not learn anything about the secret. Go…
In this Letter, we present quantum secret sharing and secret splitting protocols with single photons running forth and back between the participating parties. The protocol has a high intrinsic efficiency, namely all photons except those chosen for eavesdropping check could be used for sharing secret. The participants need not to announce the measuring bases at most of the time and this reduces the classical information exchanged largely.
I present a variety of results on the theory of quantum secret sharing. I show that any mixed state quantum secret sharing scheme can be derived by discarding a share from a pure state scheme, and that the size of each share in a quantum secret sharing scheme must be at least as large as the size of the secret. I show that the only constraints on the existence of quantum secret sharing schemes with general access structures are monotonicity (if a set is authorized, so are larger sets) and the no-cloning theorem. I also discuss some aspects of sharing classical secrets using quantum states. In …
Secret sharing is a multiparty cryptographic task in which some secret information is splitted into several pieces which are distributed among the participants such that only an authorized set of participants can reconstruct the original secret. Similar to quantum key distribution, in quantum secret sharing, the secrecy of the shared information relies not on computational assumptions, but on laws of quantum physics. Here, we present an experimental demonstration of four-party quantum secret sharing via the resource of four-photon entanglement.
Secret sharing is a procedure for sharing a secret among a number of participants such that only the qualified subsets of participants have the ability to reconstruct the secret. Even in the presence of eavesdropping, secret sharing can be achieved when all the members are quantum. So what happens if not all the members are quantum? In this paper we propose two semi-quantum secret sharing protocols using maximally entangled GHZ-type states in which quantum Alice shares a secret with two classical parties, Bob and Charlie, in a way that both parties are sufficient to obtain the secret, but one …
In a recent work, Markham and Sanders have proposed a framework to study quantum secret sharing (QSS) schemes using graph states. This framework unified three classes of QSS protocols, namely, sharing classical secrets over private and public channels, and sharing quantum secrets. However, most work on secret sharing based on graph states focused on threshold schemes. In this paper, we focus on general access structures. We show how to realize a large class of arbitrary access structures using the graph state formalism. We show an equivalence between $[[n,1]]$ binary quantum codes and graph st…
Lin et al. [S. Lin, F. Gao, Q.-y. Wen, F.-c. Zhu, Opt. Commun. 281 (2008) 4553] pointed that the multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol [Z.-j. Zhang, G. Gao, X. Wang, L.-f. Han, S.-h. Shi, Opt. Commun. 269 (2007) 418] is insecure and proposed an improved three-party quantum secret sharing protocol. In this paper, we study the security of the improved three-party quantum secret sharing protocol and find that it is still insecure. Finally, a further improved three-party quantum secret sharing protocol is proposed.
After analysing the main quantum secret sharing protocol based on the entanglement states, we propose an idea to directly encode the qubit of quantum key distributions, and then present a quantum secret sharing scheme where only product states are employed. As entanglement, especially the inaccessable multi-entangled state, is not necessary in the present quantum secret sharing protocol, it may be more applicable when the number of the parties of secret sharing is large. Its theoretic efficiency is also doubled to approach 100%.
Quantum secret sharing is well known as a method for players to share a classical secret for secret sharing in quantum mechanical ways. Most of the results associated with quantum secret sharing are based on pure multipartite entangled states. In reality, however, it is difficult for players to share a pure entangled state, although they can share a state close to the state. Thus, it is necessary to study how to perform the quantum secret sharing based on a general multipartite state. We here present a quantum secret sharing protocol on an $N$-qubit state close to a pure $N$-qubit Greenberger-…
We present a general scheme for sharing quantum secrets, and an extension to sharing classical secrets, which contain all known quantum secret sharing schemes. In this framework we show the equivalence of existence of both schemes, that is, the existence of a scheme sharing a quantum secret implies the extended classical secret sharing scheme works, and vice versa. As a consequence of this we find new schemes sharing classical secrets for arbitrary access structures. We then clarify the relationship to quantum error correction and observe several restrictions thereby imposed, which for example…
This comment points out a problem in Song et al.'s (t, n) threshold quantum secret sharing [Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2017), pp. 6366], indicating that the agent is unable to obtain the expected information.
Quantum secret sharing is one of the most important and interesting quantum information processing task. In quantum secret sharing, information is split among several parties such that only one of them is able to recover the qubit exactly provided all the other parties agree to cooperate. To achieve this task, all the parties need to share entangled state. As far as my knowledge, all the previous quantum secret sharing protocol used either pure tripartite or pure bipartite entangled state. In this work we use for the first time bipartite two qubit mixed state (formed due to noisy environment) …
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 propose here a quantum secret sharing scheme that works for both quantum and classical secrets. The proposed scheme is based on both entanglement swapping and teleportation together. It allows sender to encrypt his/her secret and simultaneously distribute decryption information of the encrypted secret among distant parties where decryption shares are nonlocally correlated with each other. Two-fold quantum non-local correlations, generated through entanglement swapping and then teleporting quantum states over swapped maximally entangled pairs, guarantee both authentication and secrecy of the…
Quantum secret sharing is a scheme for encoding a quantum state (the secret) into multiple shares and distributing them among several participants. If a sufficient number of shares are put together, then the secret can be fully reconstructed. If an insufficient number of shares are put together however, no information about the secret can be revealed. In quantum ramp secret sharing, partial information about the secret is allowed to leak to a set of participants, called an unqualified set, that cannot fully reconstruct the secret. By allowing this, the size of a share can be drastically reduce…
We proposed a scheme on secret sharing of quantum information based on entanglement swapping in cavity QED. In our scheme, the effects of cavity decay and thermal field are all eliminated.
We present a unified formalism for threshold quantum secret sharing using graph states of systems with prime dimension. We construct protocols for three varieties of secret sharing: with classical and quantum secrets shared between parties over both classical and quantum channels.
In this work, we generalize the quantum secret sharing scheme of Hillary, Bužek and Berthiaume[Phys. Rev. A59, 1829(1999)] into arbitrary multi-parties. Explicit expressions for the shared secret bit is given. It is shown that in the Hillery-Bužek-Berthiaume quantum secret sharing scheme the secret information is shared in the parity of binary strings formed by the measured outcomes of the participants. In addition, we have increased the efficiency of the quantum secret sharing scheme by generalizing two techniques from quantum key distribution. The favored-measuring-basis Quantum secret shari…
Quantum secret sharing schemes encrypting a quantum state into a multipartite entangled state are treated. The lower bound on the dimension of each share given by Gottesman [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{61}, 042311 (2000)] is revisited based on a relation between the reversibility of quantum operations and the Holevo information. We also propose a threshold ramp quantum secret sharing scheme and evaluate its coding efficiency.
An important metric of the performance of a quantum secret sharing scheme is its information rate. Beyond the fact that the information rate is upper bounded by one, very little is known in terms of bounds on the information rate of quantum secret sharing schemes. Further, not every scheme can be realized with rate one. In this paper we derive new upper bounds for the information rates of quantum secret sharing schemes. We show that there exist quantum access structures on $n$ players for which the information rate cannot be better than $O((\log_2 n)/n)$. These results are the quantum analogue…
In this paper we introduce a quantum information theoretical model for quantum secret sharing schemes. We show that quantum information theory provides a unifying framework for the study of these schemes. We prove that the information theoretical requirements for a class of quantum secret sharing schemes reduce to only one requirement (the recoverability condition) as a consequence of the no-cloning principle. We give also a shorter proof of the fact that the size of the shares in a quantum secret sharing scheme must be at least as large as the secret itself.
We study a simple graph-based classical secret sharing scheme: every player's share consists of a random key together with the encryption of the secret with the keys of his neighbours. A characterisation of the authorised and forbidden sets of players is given. Moreover, we show that this protocol is equivalent to the graph state quantum secret sharing (GS-QSS) schemes when the secret is classical. When the secret is an arbitrary quantum state, a set of players is authorised for a GS-QSS scheme if and only if, for the corresponding simple classical graph-based protocol, the set is authorised a…
In the paper [Quantum Inf. Process. 14, 4237-4244 (2015)], Qin and Dai proposed a proactive quantum secret sharing scheme. We study the security of the proposed scheme and find that it is not secure. In the distribution phase of the proposed scheme, two dishonest participants may collaborate to eavesdrop the secret of the dealer without introducing any error. Incidentally, a possible improvement of the distribution phase is given.
With the advantages of both classical and quantum secret sharing, many practical hybrid quantum secret sharing have been proposed. In this paper, we propose a hybrid quantum secret sharing scheme based on mutually unbiased bases and monotone span program. First, the dealer sends the shares in the linear secret sharing to the participants in the authorization set via a secure channel. Then, the dealer and participants perform unitary transformation on a d-dimensional quantum state sequentially, and the dealer publishes the measurement result confidentially to the participants in the authorizati…
In secret sharing protocols, a secret is to be distributed among several partners so that leaving out any number of them, the rest do not have the complete information. Strong multiqubit correlations in the state by which secret sharing is carried out, had been proposed as a criterion for security of such protocols against individual attacks by an eavesdropper. However we show that states with weak multiqubit correlations can also be used for secure secret sharing. That our state has weak multiqubit correlations, is shown from the perspective of violation of local realism, and also by showing …
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.
Based on a quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol [Phys. Rev. A69(04)052319], we propose a $(n,n)$-threshold scheme of multiparty quantum secret sharing of classical messages (QSSCM) using only single photons. We take advantage of this multiparty QSSCM scheme to establish a scheme of multiparty secret sharing of quantum information (SSQI), in which only all quantum information receivers collaborate can the original qubit be reconstructed. A general idea is also proposed for constructing multiparty SSQI schemes from any QSSCM scheme.
We present two optimal methods of teleporting an unknown qubit using any pure entangled state. We also discuss how such methods can also have succesful application in quantum secret sharing with pure multipartite entangled states.
In this work we address the issue of sharing a quantum secret over untrusted channels between the dealer and players. Existing methods require entanglement over a number of systems which scales with the security parameter, quickly becoming impractical. We present protocols (interactive and a non-interactive) where single copy encodings are sufficient. Our protocols work for all quantum secret sharing schemes and access structures, and are implementable with current experimental set ups. For a single authorised player, our protocols act as quantum authentication protocols.
A ($t$, $n$) threshold quantum secret sharing (QSS) is proposed based on a single $d$-level quantum system. It enables the ($t$, $n$) threshold structure based on Shamir's secret sharing and simply requires sequential communication in $d$-level quantum system to recover secret. Besides, the scheme provides a verification mechanism which employs an additional qudit to detect cheats and eavesdropping during secret reconstruction, and allows a participant to use the share repeatedly. Analyses show that the proposed scheme is resistant to typical attacks. Moreover, the scheme is salable in partici…
An information theoretical model for quantum secret sharing was introduced by A. C. A. Nascimento et al.[Quantum Inf. Comput. Vol.5,1,205,68-79(2003)], which was analyzed by quantum information theory. In this paper, we analyze this information theoretical model using the properties of the quantum access structure. By the analysis we propose a generalized model definition for the quantum secret sharing schemes. In our model, there are more quantum access structures which can be realized by our generalized quantum secret sharing schemes than those of the previous one. In addition, we also analy…
Some of the secret sharing schemes having unique quantum features like parallelism and entanglement are supposed to be relatively secure. Different schemes proposed by various researchers over the years have features which could be specific to the nature and need of a situation. Following Hsu's proposed scheme we propose a secret sharing scheme using Grover's search algorithm for a four qubit system with several marked states. Further, the scheme has been generalised to an n-qubit syatem.
A circular quantum secret sharing protocol is proposed, which is useful and efficient when one of the parties of secret sharing is remote to the others who are in adjacent, especially the parties are more than three. We describe the process of this protocol and discuss its security when the quantum information carrying is polarized single photons running circularly. It will be shown that entanglement is not necessary for quantum secret sharing. Moreover, the theoretic efficiency is improved to approach 100% as almost all the instances can be used for generating the private key, and each photon…
Our aim is to formulate continuous-variable quantum secret sharing as a continuous-variable ramp quantum secret sharing protocol, provide a certification procedure for it and explain the criteria for the certification. Here we introduce a technique for certifying continuous-variable ramp quantum secret-sharing schemes in the framework of quantum interactive-proof systems. We devise pseudocodes in order to represent the sequence of steps taken to solve the certification problem. Furthermore, we derive the expression for quantum mutual information between the quantum secret extracted by any mult…
We extend the formalism of cluster state quantum secret sharing, as presented in Markham and Sanders [Phys. Rev. A 78, 042309 (2008)] and Keet et al. [Phy. Rev. A 82, 062315 (2010)], to the continuous-variable regime. We show that both classical and quantum information can be shared by distributing continuous-variable cluster states through either public or private channels. We find that the adversary structure is completely denied from the secret if the cluster state is infinitely squeezed, but some secret information would be leaked if a realistic finitely squeezed state is employed. We sugg…
In this work, we investigate what kinds of quantum states are feasible to perform perfectly secure secret sharing, and present its necessary and sufficient conditions. We also show that the states are bipartite distillable for all bipartite splits, and hence the states could be distillable into the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state. We finally exhibit a class of secret-sharing states, which have an arbitrarily small amount of bipartite distillable entanglement for a certain split.
We propose an efficient scheme for sharing a continuous variable quantum secret using passive optical interferometry and squeezers: this efficiency is achieved by showing that a maximum of two squeezers is required to replicate the secret state, and we obtain the cheapest configuration in terms of total squeezing cost. Squeezing is a cost for the dealer of the secret as well as for the receivers, and we quantify limitations to the fidelity of the replicated secret state in terms of the squeezing employed by the dealer.
In a realistic situation, the secret sharing of classical or quantum information will involve the transmission of this information through noisy channels. We consider a three qubit pure state. This state becomes a mixed-state when the qubits are distributed over noisy channels. We focus on a specific noisy channel, the phase-damping channel. We propose a protocol for secret sharing of classical information with this and related noisy channels. This protocol can also be thought of as cooperative superdense coding. We also discuss other noisy channels to examine the possibility of secret sharing…
We show a potential eavesdropper can eavesdrop whole secret information when the legitimate users use secure carrier to encode and decode classical information repeatedly in the protocol [proposed in Bagherinezhad S and Karimipour V 2003 Phys. Rev. A \textbf{67} 044302]. Then we present a revised quantum secret sharing protocol by using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state as secure carrier. Our protocol can resist Eve's attack.
Analyzing carefully an experimentally feasible non-entangled single qubit quantum secret sharing protocol and its modified version [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 230505 (2005); ibid. 98, 028902 (2007)], it is found that both versions are insecure against coherent attacks though the original idea is so remarkable. To overcome this fatal flaw, here we propose a protocol with a distinct security checking strategy, which still involves single qubit operations only, making it possible to achieve better security of quantum secret sharing with current technology.
A corresponding comment, raised by Kao and Hwang, claims that the reconstructor Bob1 is unable to obtain the expected secret information in (t, n) Threshold d-level Quantum Secret Sharing (TDQSS)[Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2017), pp.6366] . In this reply, we show the TDQSS scheme can obtain the dealer's secret information in the condition of adding a step on disentanglement.
Secret sharing, in which a dealer wants to split a secret in such a way that any unauthorized subset of parties is unable to reconstruct it, plays a key role in cryptography. The security of quantum protocols for the task is guaranteed by the fact that Eve's any strategies to obtain secret information from encoded quantum states should cause a disturbance in the signal. Here, we propose a quantum secret sharing (classical information) scheme for $N$ parties based on totally different principle in which monitoring signal disturbance is no longer need. In this scheme, the secret is divided among…
We develop a three-party quantum secret sharing protocol based on arbitrary dimensional quantum states. In contrast to the previous quantum secret sharing protocols, the sender can always control the state, just using local operations, for adjusting the correlation of measurement directions of three parties and thus there is no waste of resource due to the discord between the directions. Moreover, our protocol contains the hidden value which enables the sender to leak no information of secret key to the dishonest receiver until the last steps of the procedure.
We explore the conversion of classical secret-sharing schemes to quantum ones, and how this can be used to give efficient QSS schemes for general adversary structures. Our first result is that quantum secret-sharing is possible for any structure for which no two disjoint sets can reconstruct the secret (this was also proved, somewhat differently, by D. Gottesman). To obtain this we show that a large class of linear classical SS schemes can be converted into quantum schemes of the same efficiency. We also give a necessary and sufficient condiion for the direct conversion of classical schemes in…
