Game G: Clare passes a string s which is either from perfect random number generator R0 or from good imperfect number generator R1, with equal probability. Alice's information about whether it is from R0 or R1 is bounded by small value h. Alice use s as the input random numbers for QKD protocol with Bob. Suppose Eve may have very small information about the final key if s is from R0 and Eve has large information if s is from R1, then after the protocol, Alice announce the final key, Eve's information about whether s is from R0 or R1 is unreasonablly large, i.e., breaks the known bound, h. Explicit formulas are given in the article.
It is proven that recently introduced states with perfectly secure bits of cryptographic key (private states representing secure bit) [K. Horodecki et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 160502 (2005)] as well as its multipartite and higher dimension generalizations always represent distillable entanglement. The corresponding lower bounds on distillable entanglement are provided. We also present a simple alternative proof that for any bipartite quantum state entanglement cost is an upper bound on distillable cryptographic key in bipartite scenario.
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.
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…
Blind quantum computing protocols enable a client, who can generate or measure single-qubit states, to delegate quantum computing to a remote quantum server protecting the client's privacy (i.e., input, output, and program). With current technologies, generations or measurements of single-qubit states are not too much burden for the client. In other words, secure delegated quantum computing is possible for "almost classical" clients. However, is it possible for a "completely classical" client? Here we consider a one-round perfectly-secure delegated quantum computing, and show that the protocol…
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 show that the quantum nature of light can be used to hide a secret message within a photograph. Using this physical principle we achieve information-theoretic secure steganography, which had remained elusive until now. The protocol is such that the digital picture in which the secret message is embedded is perfectly undistinguishable from an ordinary photograph. This implies that, on a fundamental level, it is impossible to discriminate a private communication from an exchange of photographs.
Secure function evaluation is a two-party cryptographic primitive where Bob computes a function of Alice's and his respective inputs, and both hope to keep their inputs private from the other party. It has been proven that perfect (or near perfect) security is impossible, even for quantum protocols. We generalize this no-go result by exhibiting a constant lower bound on the cheating probabilities for any quantum protocol for secure function evaluation, and present many applications from oblivious transfer to the millionaire's problem. Constant lower bounds are of practical interest since they …
Two deterministic secure quantum communication schemes are proposed, one based on pure entangled states and the other on $d$-dimensional single-photon states. In these two schemes, only single-photon measurements are required for the two authorized users, which makes the schemes more convenient than others in practical applications. Although each qubit can be read out after a transmission of additional classical bit, it is unnecessary for the users to transmit qubits double the distance between the sender and the receiver, which will increase their bit rate and their security. The parties use …
Quantum private states are the states that represent some amount of perfect secure key. A simple symmetry of any generalised private quantum state (ie. the states that represent perfect key but not fully random) is provided and extended on Devetak-Winter so called ccq (classical-classical-quantum) and cqq (classical-quantum-quantum) lower bound on secure key. This symmetry is used to develop a practical method of estimating the Alice measurement that is optimal form the perspective of single shot Devetak-Witner lower bound on secure key. The method is particularly good when the noise does not …
Private states are those quantum states from which a perfectly secure cryptographic key can be extracted. They represent the basic unit of quantum privacy. In this work we show that all states belonging to this class violate a Bell inequality. This result establishes a connection between perfect privacy and nonlocality in the quantum domain.
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…
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…
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…
We present a protocol for quantum cryptographic network consisting of a quantum network center and many users, in which any pair of parties with members chosen from the whole users on request can secure a quantum key distribution by help of the center. The protocol is based on the quantum authentication scheme given by Barnum et al. [Proc. 43rd IEEE Symp. FOCS'02, p. 449 (2002)]. We show that exploiting the quantum authentication scheme the center can safely make two parties share nearly perfect entangled states used in the quantum key distribution. This implies that the quantum cryptographic …
It is shown how the evidence state space in quantum bit commitment may be made to depend on the bit value 0 or 1 with split entangled pairs. As a consequence, one can obtain a protocol that is perfectly concealing, but is also $ε$-binding because the bit-value dependent evidence space prevents the committing party from cheating by means of a local transformation that is independent of the part of evidence state space that has never been in his possession.
We propose the idea of a Quantum Cheque Scheme, a cryptographic protocol in which any legitimate client of a trusted bank can issue a cheque, that cannot be counterfeited or altered in anyway, and can be verified by a bank or any of its branches. We formally define a Quantum Cheque and present the first Unconditionally Secure Quantum Cheque Scheme and show it to be secure against any no-signaling adversary. The proposed Quantum Cheque Scheme can been perceived as the quantum analog of Electronic Data Interchange, as an alternate for current e-Payment Gateways.
A secure key distribution (exchange) scheme is unconditionally secure if it is unbreakable against arbitrary technological improvements of computing power and/or any development of new algorithms. There are only two families of experimentally realized and tested unconditionally secure key distribution technologies: Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), the base of quantum cryptography, which utilizes quantum physical photonic features; and the Kirchhoff-Law-Johnson-Noise (KLJN) system that is based on classical statistical physics (fluctuation-dissipation theorem). The focus topic of this paper is t…
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…
We show how quantum dynamics (a unitary transformation) can be captured in the state of a quantum system, in such a way that the system can be used to perform, at a later time, the stored transformation almost perfectly on some other quantum system. Thus programmable quantum gates for quantum information processing are feasible if some small degree of imperfection is allowed. We discuss the possibility of using this fact for securely computing a secret function on a public quantum computer. Finally, our scheme for storage of operations also allows for a new form of quantum remote control.
We prove the security of the Bennett-Brassard (BB84) quantum key distribution protocol for an arbitrary source whose averaged states are basis-independent, a condition that is automatically satisfied if the source is suitably designed. The proof is based on the observation that, to an adversary, the key extraction process is equivalent to a measurement in the sigma_x-basis performed on a pure sigma_z-basis eigenstate. The dependence of the achievable key length on the bit error rate is the same as that established by Shor and Preskill for a perfect source, indicating that the defects in the so…
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…
The Goldenberg-Vaidman (GV) protocol for quantum key distribution (QKD) uses orthogonal encoding states of a particle. Its security arises because operations accessible to Eve are insufficient to distinguish the two states encoding the secret bit. We propose a two-particle cryptographic protocol for quantum secure direct communication, wherein orthogonal states encode the secret, and security arises from restricting Eve from accessing any two-particle operations. However, there is a non-trivial difference between the two cases. While the encoding states are perfectly indistinguishable in GV, t…
We present a quantum secure direct communication scheme achieved by swapping quantum entanglement. In this scheme a set of ordered Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pairs is used as a quantum information channel for sending secret messages directly. After insuring the safety of the quantum channel, the sender Alice encodes the secret messages directly by applying a series local operations on her particles sequence according to their stipulation. Using three EPR pairs, three bits of secret classical information can be faithfully transmitted from Alice to remote Bob without revealing any information…
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 present an one-time-pad key communication protocol that allows secure direct communication with entanglement. Alice can send message to Bob in a deterministic manner by using local measurements and public communication. The theoretical efficiency of this protocol is double compared with BB84 protocol. We show this protocol is unconditional secure under arbitrary quantum attack. And we discuss that this protocol can be perfectly implemented with current technologies.
We present a deterministic secure direct communication scheme via entanglement swapping, where a set of ordered maximally entangled three-particle states (GHZ states), initially shared by three spatially separated parties, Alice, Bob and Charlie, functions as a quantum information channel. After ensuring the safety of the quantum channel, Alice and Bob apply a series local operations on their respective particles according to the tripartite stipulation and the secret message they both want to send to Charlie. By three Alice, Bob and Charlie's Bell measurement results, Charlie is able to infer …
Homomorphic encryption is a form of encryption which allows computation to be carried out on the encrypted data without the need for decryption. The success of quantum approaches to related tasks in a delegated computation setting has raised the question of whether quantum mechanics may be used to achieve information theoretically secure fully homomorphic encryption. Here we show, via an information localisation argument, that deterministic fully homomorphic encryption necessarily incurs exponential overhead if perfect security is required.
Quantum oblivious transfer (QOT) is an essential cryptographic primitive. But unconditionally secure QOT is known to be impossible. Here we propose a practical QOT protocol, which is perfectly secure against dishonest sender without relying on any technological assumption. Meanwhile, it is also secure against dishonest receiver in the absence of long-term quantum memory and complicated collective measurements. The protocol is extremely feasible, as it can be implemented using currently available Mach-Zehnder interferometer, and no quantum memory, collective measurements nor entanglement are ne…
We propose a simultaneous quantum secure direct communication scheme between one party and other three parties via four-particle GHZ states and swapping quantum entanglement. In the scheme, three spatially separated senders, Alice, Bob and Charlie, transmit their secret messages to a remote receiver Diana by performing a series local operations on their respective particles according to the quadripartite stipulation. From Alice, Bob, Charlie and Diana's Bell measurement results, Diana can infer the secret messages. If a perfect quantum channel is used, the secret messages are faithfully transm…
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）
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a technology that allows two users to exchange keys securely. The decoy state technique enhances the technology, ensuring keys can be shared at high bit rates over long distances with information theoretic security. However, imperfections in the implementation, known as side-channels, threaten the perfect security of practical QKD protocols. Intensity modulators are required for high-rate decoy state QKD systems, although these are unstable and can display a side channel where the intensity of a pulse is dependent on the previous pulse. Here we demonstrate the…
Simplified quantum key distribution implementation secure in the presence of state preparation flaws
Vigo Quantum Communication Center, University of Vigo（维戈量子通信中心，维戈大学）；Escuela de Ingeniería de Telecomunicación, Department of Signal Theory and Communications, University of Vigo（电信工程学院，信号理论与通信系，维戈大学）；AtlanTTic Research Center, University of Vigo（AtlanTTic研究中心，维戈大学）；Department of Applied Physics, University of Geneva（应用物理系，日内瓦大学）
We present a controlled quantum teleportation protocol. In the protocol, quantum information of an unknown state of a 2-level particle is faithfully transmitted from a sender (Alice) to a remote receiver (Bob) via an initially shared triplet of entangled particles under the control of the supervisor Charlie. The distributed entangled particles shared by Alice, Bob and Charlie function as a quantum information channel for faithful transmission. We also propose a controlled and secure direct communication scheme by means of this teleportation. After insuring the security of the quantum channel, …
Twin field quantum key distribution promises high key rates at long distance to beat the rate distance limit. Here, applying the sending or not sending TF QKD protocol, we experimentally demonstrate a secure key distribution breaking the absolute key rate limit of repeaterless QKD over 509 km, 408 km ultra-low loss optical fibre and 350 km standard optical fibre. Two independent lasers are used as the source with remote frequency locking technique over 500 km fiber distance; Practical optical fibers are used as the optical path with appropriate noise filtering; And finite key effects are consi…
Quantum computing represents an emerging threat to the public key infrastructure underlying transport layer security (TLS) widely used in the Internet. This paper describes how QKD symmetric keys can be used with TLS to provide quantum computing resistant security for existing Internet applications. We also implement and test a general hybrid key delivery architecture with QKD over long distance fibers between secure sites, and wireless key distribution over short distance within each site Finally we show how this same capability can be extended to a TLS cipher scheme with perfect security.
We provide bounds on the efficiency of secure one-sided output two-party computation of arbitrary finite functions from trusted distributed randomness in the statistical case. From these results we derive bounds on the efficiency of protocols that use different variants of OT as a black-box. When applied to implementations of OT, these bounds generalize most known results to the statistical case. Our results hold in particular for transformations between a finite number of primitives and for any error. In the second part we study the efficiency of quantum protocols implementing OT. While most …
A two-layer quantum protocol for secure transmission of data using qubits is presented. The protocol is an improvement over the BB84 QKD protocol. BB84, in conjunction with the one-time pad algorithm, has been shown to be unconditionally secure. However it suffers from two drawbacks: (1) Its security relies on the assumption that Alice's qubit source is perfect in the sense that it does not inadvertently emit multiple copies of the same qubit. A multi-qubit emission attack can be launched if this assumption is violated. (2) BB84 cannot transfer predetermined keys; the keys it can distribute ar…
University of Cambridge（剑桥大学）；Shenzhen International Center For Industrial And Applied Mathematics, Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data（深圳国际应用数学中心，深圳大数据研究院）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；University of California San Diego（加州大学圣地亚哥分校）
This paper introduces quantum analogues of non-interactive perfect and statistical zero-knowledge proof systems. Similar to the classical cases, it is shown that sharing randomness or entanglement is necessary for non-trivial protocols of non-interactive quantum perfect and statistical zero-knowledge. It is also shown that, with sharing EPR pairs a priori, the class of languages having one-sided bounded error non-interactive quantum perfect zero-knowledge proof systems has a natural complete problem. Non-triviality of such a proof system is based on the fact proved in this paper that the Graph…
We introduce a secure hardware device named a QEnclave that can secure the remote execution of quantum operations while only using classical controls. This device extends to quantum computing the classical concept of a secure enclave which isolates a computation from its environment to provide privacy and tamper-resistance. Remarkably, our QEnclave only performs single-qubit rotations, but can nevertheless be used to secure an arbitrary quantum computation even if the qubit source is controlled by an adversary. More precisely, attaching a QEnclave to a quantum computer, a remote client control…
In the task cryptographers call bit commitment, one party encrypts a prediction in a way that cannot be decrypted until they supply a key, but has only one valid key. Bit commitment has many applications, and has been much studied, but completely and provably secure schemes have remained elusive. Here we report a new development in physics-based cryptography which gives a completely new way of implementing bit commitment that is perfectly secure. The technique involves sending a quantum state (for instance one or more photons) at light speed in one of two or more directions, either along a sec…
Lottery is a game in which multiple players take chances in the hope of getting some rewards in cash or kind. In addition, from the time of the early civilizations, lottery has also been considered as an apposite method to allocate scarce resources. Technically, any scheme for lottery needs to be fair and secure, but none of the classical schemes for lottery are unconditionally secure and fair. As fairness demands complete unpredictability of the outcome of the lottery, it essentially requires perfect randomness. Quantum mechanics not only guarantees the generation of perfect randomness, it ca…
