We analyze the security of quantum cryptography schemes for $d$-level systems using 2 or $d+1$ maximally conjugated bases, under individual eavesdropping attacks based on cloning machines and measurement after the basis reconciliation. We consider classical advantage distillation protocols, that allow to extract a key even in situations where the mutual information between the honest parties is smaller than the eavesdropper's information. In this scenario, advantage distillation protocols are shown to be as powerful as quantum distillation: key distillation is possible using classical techniques if and only if the corresponding state in the entanglement based protocol is distillable.
Security flaw of counterfactual quantum cryptography in practical setting
最近，T. G. Noh [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103，230501（2009）]成为量子密码学中一个有趣的方向，并已被一些研究人员（如Y. Liu等人的[Phys.Rev.Lett. 109，030501（2012）]）。然而，我们发现，它是不安全的，在实际的高损耗信道设置。分析了在有耗信道中极化分裂测量攻击下的密钥速率。分析表明，当单向信道的丢失率超过$50%$时，协议是不安全的。
Security proof of Counterfactual Quantum Cryptography against General Intercept-resend Attacks and Its Vulnerability
Noh最近提出的反事实量子密码（CQC）具有不传输信号粒子的特点。这表现出明显的安全优势，如它的免疫力众所周知的PNS攻击。本文通过对窃听者Eve的信息进行比Yin的方案更严格的限制，证明了CQC协议在一般拦截重发攻击下的理论安全性[Phys. Rev. A 82，042335（2010）].它还表明，实际的CQC实现可能是脆弱的，当配备有不完美的设备，通过证明，可以实现负的密钥速率时，夏娃发起时移攻击的基础上不完美的检测器效率。
We prove that the teleportation based quantum cryptography protocol presented in [Opt. Commun. 283, 184 (2010)], which is built using only orthogonal states encoding the classical bits that are teleported from Alice to Bob, is asymptotically secure against all types of individual and collective attacks. We then investigate modifications to that protocol leading to greater secret-key rates and to security against coherent attacks. In other words, we show an unconditional secure quantum key distribution protocol that does not need non-orthogonal quantum states to encode the bits of the secret ke…
We study the impact of finite-size effects on the security of thermal one-way quantum cryptography. Our approach considers coherent/squeezed states at the preparation stage, on the top of which the sender adds trusted thermal noise. We compute the key rate incorporating finite-size effects, and we obtain the security threshold at different frequencies. As expected finite-size effects deteriorate the performance of thermal quantum cryptography. Our analysis is useful to quantify the impact of this degradation on relevant parameters like tolerable attenuation, transmission frequencies at which o…
The unconditional security of a quantum key distribution protocol is often defined in terms of the accessible information, that is, the maximum mutual information between the distributed key S and the outcome of an optimal measurement on the adversary's (quantum) system. We show that, even if this quantity is small, certain parts of the key S might still be completely insecure when S is used in applications, such as for one-time pad encryption. This flaw is due to a locking property of the accessible information: one additional (physical) bit of information might increase the accessible inform…
Privacy amplification is the key step to guarantee the security of quantum communication. The existing security proofs require accumulating a large number of raw key bits for privacy amplification. This is similar to block ciphers in classical cryptography that would delay the final key generation since an entire block must be accumulated before privacy amplification. Moreover, any leftover errors after information reconciliation would corrupt the entire block. By modifying the security proof based on quantum error correction, we develop a stream privacy amplification scheme, which resembles t…
Quantum cryptography is information-theoretically secure owing to its solid basis in quantum mechanics. However, generally, initial implementations with practical imperfections might open loopholes, allowing an eavesdropper to compromise the security of a quantum cryptographic system. This has been shown to happen for quantum key distribution (QKD). Here we apply experience from implementation security of QKD to several other quantum cryptographic primitives. We survey quantum digital signatures, quantum secret sharing, source-independent quantum random number generation, quantum secure direct…
It is often claimed that the security of quantum key distribution (QKD) is guaranteed by the laws of physics. However, this claim is content-free if the underlying theoretical definition of QKD is not actually compatible with the laws of physics. This paper observes that (1) the laws of physics pose serious obstacles to the security of QKD and (2) the same laws are ignored in all QKD "security proofs".
A semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) protocol allows two users, one of whom is restricted in their quantum capabilities, to establish a shared secret key, secure against an all-powerful adversary. In this paper, we design a new SQKD protocol using high-dimensional quantum states and conduct an information theoretic security analysis. We show that, similar to the fully-quantum key distribution case, high-dimensional systems can increase the noise tolerance in the semi-quantum case. Along the way, we prove several general security results which are applicable to other SQKD protocols (both high…
