We consider the scenario where Alice wants to send a secret (classical) $n$-bit message to Bob using a classical key, and where only one-way transmission from Alice to Bob is possible. In this case, quantum communication cannot help to obtain perfect secrecy with key length smaller then $n$. We study the question of whether there might still be fundamental differences between the case where quantum as opposed to classical communication is used. In this direction, we show that there exist ciphers with perfect security producing quantum ciphertext where, even if an adversary knows the plaintext and applies an optimal measurement on the ciphertext, his Shannon uncertainty about the key used is almost maximal. This is in contrast to the classical case where the adversary always learns $n$ bits of information on the key in a known plaintext attack. We also show that there is a limit to how different the classical and quantum cases can be: the most probable key, given matching plain- and ciphertexts, has the same probability in both the quantum and the classical cases. We suggest an application of our results in the case where only a short secret key is available and the message is much longer.
We present two new definitions of security for quantum ciphers which are inspired by the definition of entropic security and entropic indistinguishability defined by Dodis and Smith. We prove the equivalence of these two new definitions. We also propose a generalization of a cipher described by Dodis and Smith and show that it can actually encrypt n qubits using less than n bits of key under reasonable conditions and yet be secure in an information theoretic setting. This cipher also totally closes the gap between the key requirement of quantum ciphers and classical ciphers.
The security analysis of physical encryption protocol based on coherent pulse position modulation(CPPM) originated by Yuen is one of the most interesting topics in the study of cryptosystem with a security level beyond the Shannon limit. Although the implementation of CPPM scheme has certain difficulty, several methods have been proposed recently. This paper deals with the CPPM encryption in terms of symplectic transformation, which includes a phase mask encryption as a special example, and formulates a unified security analysis for such encryption schemes. Specifically, we give a lower bound …
A revised version will be uploaded later. In this Letter, it is shown that the one-time-pad key in the Vernam cipher can be repeatedly used with unconditional security using quantum media. The security proof is given with two explicit protocols, and the error rate threshold is analyzed.
We review the notion of a classical random cipher and its advantages. We sharpen the usual description of random ciphers to a particular mathematical characterization suggested by the salient feature responsible for their increased security. We describe a concrete system known as AlphaEta and show that it is equivalent to a random cipher in which the required randomization is effected by coherent-state quantum noise. We describe the currently known security features of AlphaEta and similar systems, including lower bounds on the unicity distances against ciphertext-only and known-plaintext atta…
A quantum cipher supported by a secret key so called keyed communication in quantum noise (KCQ) is very attractive in implementing high speed key generation and secure data transmission. However, Yuen-2000 as a basic model of KCQ has a difficulty to ensure the quantitative security evaluation because all physical parameter for the cipher system is finite. Recently, an outline of a generalized scheme so called coherent pulse position modulation(CPPM) to show the rigorous security analysis is given, where the parameters are allowed to be asymptotical. This may open a new way for the quantum key …
Nishioka et al claim in [1], elaborating on their earlier paper [2], that the direct encryption scheme called Y-00 [3,4] is equivalent to a classical non-random additive stream cipher, and thus offers no more security than the latter. In this paper, we show that this claim is false and that Y-00 may be considered equivalent to a \emph{random} cipher. We explain why a random cipher provides additional security compared to its nonrandom counterpart. Some criticisms in [1] on the use of Y-00 for key generation are also briefly responded to.
The Even-Mansour cipher is a simple method for constructing a (keyed) pseudorandom permutation $E$ from a public random permutation~$P:\{0,1\}^n \rightarrow \{0,1\}^n$. It is secure against classical attacks, with optimal attacks requiring $q_E$ queries to $E$ and $q_P$ queries to $P$ such that $q_E \cdot q_P \approx 2^n$. If the attacker is given \emph{quantum} access to both $E$ and $P$, however, the cipher is completely insecure, with attacks using $q_E, q_P = O(n)$ queries known. In any plausible real-world setting, however, a quantum attacker would have only \emph{classical} access to the…
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…
Cloud computing system based on data centers has recently attracted considerable attention. In that system, all data are communicated via a high speed optical network between a customer and data center or between data centers. There is a serious threat so called "Eavesdropper data center business", which means the eavesdropper can get all data from the transmission line and sell specific data selected by the protocol analyzer to malicious people who want to get the secret data. So we need to consider cyber attack against Layer-1 (physical layer). Quantum cryptography has been developed to prot…
What obstructs the realization of useful quantum cryptography is single photon scheme, or entanglement which is not applicable to the current infrastructure of optical communication network. We are concerned with the following question: Can we realize the information theoretically secure symmetric key cipher under "the finite secret key" based on quantum-optical communications? A role of quantum information theory is to give an answer for such a question. As an answer for the question, a new quantum cryptography was proposed by H.P.Yuen, which can realize a secure symmetric key cipher with hig…
In 2000, an attractive new quantum cryptography was discovered by H.P.Yuen based on quantum communication theory. It is applicable to direct encryption, for example quantum stream cipher based on Yuen protocol(Y-00), with high speeds and for long distance by sophisticated optical devices which can work under the average photon number per signal light pulse:$<n> = 1000 \sim 10000$. In addition, it may provide information-theoretic security against known/chosen plaintext attack, which has no classical analogue. That is, one can provide secure communication, even the system has $H(K) << H(X)$. In…
QKD-Integrated Quantum Noise Stream Cipher: An Overview
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee（印度技术学院鲁尔凯拉）；Tamagawa University（多摩川大学）；Northwestern University（西北大学）；Eindhoven University of Technology（埃因霍温理工大学）
This paper shall investigate Yuen protocol, so called Y-00, which can realize a randomized stream cipher with high bit rate(Gbps) for long distance(several hundreds km). The randomized stream cipher with randomization by quantum noise based on Y-00 is called quantum stream cipher in this paper, and it may have security against known plaintext attacks which has no analog with any conventional symmetric key ciphers. We present a simple cryptanalysis based on an attacker's heterodyne measurement and the quantum unambiguous measurement to make clear the strength of Y-00 in real communication. In a…
This paper presents the security analysis on the quantum stream cipher so called Yuen-2000 protocol (or $αη$ scheme) against the fast correlation attack, the typical attack on stream ciphers. Although a very simple experimental model of the quantum stream cipher without a random mapper may be decrypted in the information theoretic sense by the fast correlation algorithm, it is not a basic feature of Yuen 2000 protocol. In fact, we clarify that there exists a randomization scheme which attains the perfect correlation immunity against such attacks under an approximation. And in this scheme, the …
In this paper, we report the first quantum key-recovery attack on a symmetric block cipher design, using classical queries only, with a more than quadratic time speedup compared to the best classical attack. We study the 2XOR-Cascade construction of Gaži and Tessaro (EUROCRYPT~2012). It is a key length extension technique which provides an n-bit block cipher with 5n/2 bits of security out of an n-bit block cipher with 2n bits of key, with a security proof in the ideal model. We show that the offline-Simon algorithm of Bonnetain et al. (ASIACRYPT~2019) can be extended to, in particular, attack …
So far, quantum key distribution (QKD) has been the main subject in the field of quantum cryptography, but that is not quantum cryptographic communication, it is only the ability to send keys for cryptographic purposes. To complete cryptographic communication, a technique for encrypting data is necessary, and the conventional cryptographic technique of mathematical symmetric key cipher or One Time Pad (OTP) is adopted in the discussion so far. However, OTP is not the ultimate cipher for data encryption, because it does not satisfy security conditions in the modern cryptology. Around 2000, a ne…
We discuss aspects of secure quantum communication by proposing and analyzing a quantum analog of the Vernam cipher (one-time-pad). The quantum Vernam cipher uses entanglement as the key to encrypt quantum information sent through an insecure quantum channel. First, in sharp contrast with the classical Vernam cipher, the quantum key can be recycled securely. We show that key recycling is intrinsic to the quantum cipher-text, rather than using entanglement as the key. Second, the scheme detects and corrects for arbitrary transmission errors, and it does so using only local operations and classi…
This research note II introduces a way to understand a basic concept of the quantum enigma cipher. The conventional cipher is designed by a mathematical algorithm and its security is evaluated by the complexity of the algorithm in security analysis and ability of computers. This kind of cipher can be decrypted with probability one in principle by the Brute force attack in which an eavesdropper tries all the possible keys based on the correct ciphertext and some known plaintext. A cipher with quantum effects in physical layer may protect the system from the Brute force attack by means of the qu…
We study the amplification of security against quantum attacks provided by iteration of block ciphers. In the classical case, the Meet-in-the-middle attack is a generic attack against those constructions. This attack reduces the time required to break double iterations to only twice the time it takes to attack a single block cipher, given that the attacker has access to a large amount of memory. More abstractly, it shows that security by composition does not achieve exact multiplicative amplification. We present a quantized version of this attack based on an optimal quantum algorithm for the E…
Large-scale quantum computing is a significant threat to classical public-key cryptography. In strong "quantum access" security models, numerous symmetric-key cryptosystems are also vulnerable. We consider classical encryption in a model which grants the adversary quantum oracle access to encryption and decryption, but where the latter is restricted to non-adaptive (i.e., pre-challenge) queries only. We define this model formally using appropriate notions of ciphertext indistinguishability and semantic security (which are equivalent by standard arguments) and call it QCCA1 in analogy to the cl…
This research note suggests a new way to realize a high speed direct encryption based on quantum detection theory. The conventional cipher is designed by a mathematical algorithm and its security is evaluated by the complexity of the algorithm for cryptanalysis and ability of computers. This kind of cipher cannot exceed the Shannon limit of cryptography,and it can be decrypted with probability one in principle by trying all the possible keys against the data length equal to the secret key length. A cipher with quantum effect in physical layer may exceed the Shannon limit of cryptography. The q…
Although quantum key distribution is regarded as promising secure communication, security of Y00 protocol proposed by Yuen in 2000 for the affinity to conventional optical communication is not well-understood yet; its security has been evaluated only by the eavesdropper's error probabilities of detecting individual signals or masking size, the number of hidden signal levels under quantum and classical noise. Our study is the first challenge of evaluating the guessing probabilities on shared secret keys for pseudorandom number generators in a simplified Y00 communication system based on quantum…
Quantum encryption is a well studied problem for both classical and quantum information. However, little is known about quantum encryption schemes which enable the user, under different keys, to learn different functions of the plaintext, given the ciphertext. In this paper, we give a novel one-bit secret-key quantum encryption scheme, a classical extension of which allows different key holders to learn different length subsequences of the plaintext from the ciphertext. We prove our quantum-classical scheme secure under the notions of quantum semantic security, quantum entropic indistinguishab…
The previous work showed that the Y00 protocol could stay secure with the eavesdropper's guessing probability on the secret keys being strictly less than one under an unlimitedly long known-plaintext attack with quantum memory. However, an assumption that at least a fast correlation attack is completely disabled by irregular mapping. The present study shows that the Y00 protocol can be information-theoretic secure under any quantum-computational crypto-analyses if the Y00 system is well designed. The Y00 protocol directly encrypts messages with short secret keys expanded into pseudo-random run…
We study the problem of encrypting and authenticating quantum data in the presence of adversaries making adaptive chosen plaintext and chosen ciphertext queries. Classically, security games use string copying and comparison to detect adversarial cheating in such scenarios. Quantumly, this approach would violate no-cloning. We develop new techniques to overcome this problem: we use entanglement to detect cheating, and rely on recent results for characterizing quantum encryption schemes. We give definitions for (i.) ciphertext unforgeability , (ii.) indistinguishability under adaptive chosen-cip…
Uncloneable decryptors are encryption schemes (with classical plaintexts and ciphertexts) with the added functionality of deriving uncloneable quantum states, called decryptors, which could be used to decrypt ciphers without knowledge of the secret key (Georgiou and Zhandry, IACR'20). We study uncloneable decryptors in the computational setting and provide increasingly strong security notions which extend the various indistinguishable security notions of symmetric encryption. We show that CPA secure uncloneable bit decryptors could be instantiated from a copy protection scheme (Aaronson, CCC'0…
Grover's search algorithm gives a quantum attack against block ciphers by searching for a key that matches a small number of plaintext-ciphertext pairs. This attack uses $O(\sqrt{N})$ calls to the cipher to search a key space of size $N$. Previous work in the specific case of AES derived the full gate cost by analyzing quantum circuits for the cipher, but focused on minimizing the number of qubits. In contrast, we study the cost of quantum key search attacks under a depth restriction and introduce techniques that reduce the oracle depth, even if it requires more qubits. As cases in point, we d…
