Three-step semiquantum secure direct communication protocol

Quantum secure direct communication is the direct communication of secret messages without need for establishing a shared secret key first. In the existing schemes, quantum secure direct communication is possible only when both parties are quantum. In this paper, we construct a three-step semiquantum secure direct communication (SQSDC) protocol based on single photon sources in which the sender Alice is classical. In a semiquantum protocol, a person is termed classical if he (she) can measure, prepare and send quantum states only with the fixed orthogonal quantum basis {|0〉, |1〉}. The security of the proposed SQSDC protocol is guaranteed by the complete robustness of semiquantum key distribution protocols and the unconditional security of classical one-time pad encryption. Therefore, the proposed SQSDC protocol is also completely robust. Complete robustness indicates that nonzero information acquired by an eavesdropper Eve on the secret message implies the nonzero probability that the legitimate participants can find errors on the bits tested by this protocol. In the proposed protocol, we suggest a method to check Eves disturbing in the doves returning phase such that Alice does not need to announce publicly any position or their coded bits value after the photons transmission is completed. Moreover, the proposed SQSDC protocol can be implemented with the existing techniques. Compared with many quantum secure direct communication protocols, the proposed SQSDC protocol has two merits: firstly the sender only needs classical capabilities; secondly to check Eves disturbing after the transmission of quantum states, no additional classical information is needed.     

Sender-controlled measurement-device-independent multiparty quantum communication

Multiparty quantum communication is an important branch of quantum networks. It enables private information transmission with information-theoretic security among legitimate parties. We propose a sender-controlled measurement-device-independent multiparty quantum communication protocol. The sender Alice divides a private message into several parts and delivers them to different receivers for secret sharing with imperfect measurement devices and untrusted ancillary nodes. Furthermore, Alice acts as an active controller and checks the security of quantum channels and the reliability of each receiver before she encodes her private message for secret sharing, which makes the protocol convenient for multiparity quantum communication.     

控制的量子隐形传态和控制的量子安全直接通信

我们提出了一个控制的量子隐形传态方案。在这方案中，发送方Alice 在监督者Charlie的控制下以他们分享的三粒子纠缠态作为量子通道将二能级粒子未知态的量子信息忠实的传给了遥远的接受方Bob。我们还提出了借助此传态的控制的量子安全直接通信方案。在保证量子通道安全的情况下， Alice直接将秘密信息编码在粒子态序列上，并在Charlie控制下用此传态方法传给Bob。Bob可通过测量他的量子位读出编码信息。由于没有带秘密信息的量子位在Alice 和Bob之间传送，只要量子通道安全， 这种通信不会泄露给窃听者任何信息， 是绝对安全的。这个方案的的特征是双方通信需得到第三方的许可。     

Intercept-resend attack on six-state quantum key distribution over collective-rotation noise channels

We investigate the effect of collective-rotation noise on the security of the six-state quantum key distribution. We study the case where the eavesdropper, Eve, performs an intercept-resend attack on the quantum communication between Alice, the sender, and Bob, the receiver. We first derive the collective-rotation noise model for the six-state protocol and then parameterize the mutual information between Alice and Eve. We then derive quantum bit error rate for three interceptresend attack scenarios. We observe that the six-state protocol is robust against intercept-resend attacks on collective rotation noise channels when the rotation angle is kept within certain bounds.     

Multiparty Quantum Secret Sharing of Secure Direct Communication Using Teleportation

We present an (n,n) threshold quantum secret sharing scheme of secure direct communication using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state and teleportation.After ensuring the security of the quantum channel,the sender encodes the secret message directly on a sequence of particle states and transmits it to the receivers by teleportation.The receivers can recover the secret message by combining their measurement results with the sender's result.If a perfect quantum channel is used,our scheme is completely secure because the transmitting particle sequence does not carry the secret message.We also show our scheme is secure for noise quantum channel.     

Threshold quantum secure direct communication without entanglement

For the first time, a threshold quantum secure direct communication (TQSDC) scheme is presented. Similar to the classical Shamir's secret sharing scheme, the sender makes n shares, S1, …, Sn of secret key K and each receiver keeps a share secretly. If the sender wants to send a secret message M to the receivers, he en-codes the information of K and M on a single photon sequence and sends it to one of the receivers. According to the secret shares, the t receivers sequentially per-form the corresponding unitary operations on the single photon sequence and ob-tain the secret message M. The shared shares may be reusable if it can be judged that there is no eavesdropper in line. We discuss that our protocol is feasible with current technology.     

Efficient One-Sender Versus N-Receiver Quantum Secure Direct Communication

An efficient quantum secure direct communication protocol with one-sender versus N-receiver is proposed. The secret bits can be encoded in the N ＋ 1-particle GHZ states and can be decoded by the N receivers with a classical information of the sender plus their own measurement outcomes. Any attacks can be detected by comparing measurement results on the detecting states.     

Quantum Authencryption with Two-Photon Entangled States for Off-Line Communicants

In this paper, a quantum authencryption protocol is proposed by using the two-photon entangled states as the quantum resource. Two communicants Alice and Bob share two private keys in advance, which determine the generation of two-photon entangled states. The sender Alice sends the two-photon entangled state sequence encoded with her classical bits to the receiver Bob in the manner of one-step quantum transmission. Upon receiving the encoded quantum state sequence, Bob decodes out Alice’s classical bits with the two-photon joint measurements and authenticates the integrity of Alice’s secret with the help of one-way hash function. The proposed protocol only uses the one-step quantum transmission and needs neither a public discussion nor a trusted third party. As a result, the proposed protocol can be adapted to the case where the receiver is off-line, such as the quantum E-mail systems. Moreover, the proposed protocol provides the message authentication to one bit level with the help of one-way hash function and has an information-theoretical efficiency equal to 100 %.     

Controller-Independent Bidirectional Direct Communication with Four-Qubit Cluster States

We propose a feasible scheme for implementing bidirectional quantum direct communication protocol using four-qubit cluster states. In this scheme, the quantum channel between the sender Alice and the receiver Bob consists of an ordered sequence of cluster states which are prepared by Alice. After ensuring the security of quantum channel, according to the secret messages, the sender will perform the unitary operation and the receiver can obtain different secret messages in a deterministic way.     

Multiparty Quantum Remote Secret Conference

We present two schemes for multiparty quantum remote secret conference in which each legitimate conferee can read out securely the secret message announced by another, but a vicious eavesdropper can get nothing about it. The first one is based on the same key shared efficiently and securely by all the parties with Greenberger-Horne- Zeilinger （GHZ） states, and each conferee sends his secret message to the others with one-time pad crypto-system. The other one is based on quantum encryption with a quantum key~ a sequence of GHZ states shared among all the conferees and used repeatedly after confirming their security. Both these schemes are optimal as their intrinsic efficiency for qubits approaches the maximal value.     

基于Bell态粒子和单光子混合的量子安全直接通信方案的信息泄露问题

最近,一种基于Bell态粒子和单光子混合的量子安全直接通信方案[物理学报65 230301(2016)]被提出.文章宣称一个量子态可以编码3比特经典信息,从而使得协议具有很高的信息传输效率.不幸的是,该协议存在信息泄露问题:编码在单光子上的3比特经典信息有2比特被泄露,而编码在Bell态上的3比特经典信息有1比特被泄露,所以它不是一个安全的直接量子通信方案.在保留原协议思想且尽可能少地更改原协议的基础上,我们提出一种改进的消息编码规则,从而解决信息泄露问题,使之成为一个高效、安全的量子通信协议.衷心希望研究者能对量子安全通信协议中信息泄露问题引起足够重视,设计真正安全的量子通信协议.     

Multiparty quantum secret sharing based on Bell measurement

A multiparty quantum secret sharing scheme based on Bell measurement is proposed and analyzed. In this scheme, all agents are not required to prepare entangled states or perform any local unitary operation. The security of the protocol is also analyzed. It is shown that any eavesdropper will introduce errors invariably and be detected if he tries to steal information about Trent’s secret. Moreover, because no classical bit needs to be transmitted except those for detection, the total efficiency of the scheme approaches to 100%.     

利用三粒子W态隐形传送三粒子GHZ态

提出一个三粒子GHZ(Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger)态从发送者传送给两个接收者中任意一个的量子隐形传送方案。此方案用两个三粒子W态作为量子信道。若发送者进行两次贝尔态测量和阿达码门操作,想得到所需传送的三粒子GHZ态的接收者引进一个辅助粒子,进行控制-非操作,同时根据另一个接收者的测量结果实施一个适当的幺正变换操作,可以一定的概率成功地隐形传送三粒子GHZ态。同时,此方案可推广至隐形传送n粒子GHZ态,这时也只需用两个三粒子W态作为量子信道,但这时想得到所需传送的n粒子GHZ态的接收者需引进(n-2)个辅助粒子,进行(n-2)次控制非操作,同时根据另一个接收者的测量结果实施一个适当的幺正变换操作,可以一定的概率成功地隐形传送n粒子GHZ态。     

A Continuous Variable Quantum Key Distribution Protocol Based on Entanglement Swapping of Quasi-Bell Entangled Coherent States

A continuous variable quantum key distribution protocol with entanglement swapping of quasi-Bell entangled coherent states is proposed. As the preliminary step, a sender shares quasi-Bell entangled coherent states with a receiver. After their measurements to distinguish the cases of a zero response, a nonzero even-photon response and an odd-photon response, two legitimate participants fulfill the task of key distribution. The correlations resulting from entanglement swapping of quasi-Bell entangled coherent states and the order rearrangement of transmitted states provide the possibility to protect secret key distribution. In the ideal channel, the success probability increases with the amplitude of the coherent state, and approaches unity when the amplitude of the coherent state is larger than two. However, in the loss channel, the decoherence will introduce error in the generated key, and the error rate increases with the amplitude of the coherent state. When the amplitude of the coherent state is smaller than 0.2 (or so), the error rate approaches zero, although the success probability is less than 0.5 in this case.     

Cryptanalysis of Controlled Quantum Secure Direct Communication and Authentication Protocol Based on Five-Particle Cluster State and Quantum One-Time Pad

A new attack strategy, the so-called intercept-selectively-measure-resend attack is put forward. It shows that there are some security issues in the controlled quantum secure direct communication (CQSDC) and authentication protocol based on five-particle cluster states and quantum one-time pad. Firstly, an eavesdropper (Eve) can use this attack to eavesdrop on 0.656 bit of every bit of the identity string of the receiver and 1.406 bits of every couple of the corresponding bits of the secret message without being detected. Also, she can eavesdrop on 0.311 bit of every bit of the identity string of the controller. Secondly, the receiver can also take this attack to obtain 1.311 bits of every couple of the corresponding bits of the secret message without the permission of the controller, which is not allowed in the CQSDC protocols. In fact, there is another security issue in this protocol, that is, one half of the information about the secret is leaked out unconsciously. In addition, an alternative attack strategy which is called as the selective-CNOT-operation attack strategy to attack this protocol is discussed.     

Lower bound for the security of differential phase shift quantum key distribution against a one-pulse-attack

Quantum key distribution is the art of sharing secret keys between two distant parties, and has attracted a lot of attention due to its unconditional security. Compared with other quantum key distribution protocols, the differential phase shift quantum key distribution protocol has higher efficiency and simpler apparatus. Unfortunately, the unconditional security of differential phase shift quantum key distribution has not been proved. Utilizing the sharp continuity of the von Neuman entropy and some basic inequalities, we estimate the upper bound for the eavesdropper Eve's information. We then prove the lower bound for the security of the differential phase shift quantum key distribution protocol against a one-pulse attack with Devatak-Winter's secret key rate formula.     

Eavesdropping on the＇ping-pong＇ quantum communication protocol freely in a noise channel

We introduce an attack scheme for eavesdropping freely the ping-pong quantum communication protocol proposed by Bostr\"{o} m and Felbinger [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 187902 (2002)] in a noise channel. The vicious eavesdropper, Eve, intercepts and measures the travel photon transmitted between the sender and the receiver. Then she replaces the quantum signal with a multi-photon signal in the same state, and measures the returned photons with the measuring basis, with which Eve prepares the fake signal except for one photon. This attack increases neither the quantum channel losses nor the error rate in the sampling instances for eavesdropping check. It works for eavesdropping the secret message transmitted with the ping-pong protocol. Finally, we propose a way for improving the security of the ping-pong protocol.     

Wigner’s Friend Scenarios and the Internal Consistency of Standard Quantum Mechanics

Wigner’s friend scenarios involve an Observer, or Observers, measuring a Friend, or Friends, who themselves make quantum measurements. In recent discussions, it has been suggested that quantum mechanics may not always be able to provide a consistent account of a situation involving two Observers and two Friends. We investigate this problem by invoking the basic rules of quantum mechanics as outlined by Feynman in the well-known “Feynman Lectures on Physics”. We show here that these “Feynman rules” constrain the a priori assumptions which can be made in generalised Wigner’s friend scenarios, because the existence of the probabilities of interest ultimately depends on the availability of physical evidence (material records) of the system’s past. With these constraints obeyed, a non-ambiguous and consistent account of all measurement outcomes is obtained for all agents, taking part in various Wigner’s Friend scenarios.     

Entangled state quantum cryptography: eavesdropping on the ekert protocol

Using polarization-entangled photons from spontaneous parametric down-conversion, we have implemented Ekert's quantum cryptography protocol. The near-perfect correlations of the photons allow the sharing of a secret key between two parties. The presence of an eavesdropper is continually checked by measuring Bell's inequalities. We investigated several possible eavesdropper strategies, including pseudo-quantum-nondemolition measurements. In all cases, the eavesdropper's presence was readily apparent. We discuss a procedure to increase her detectability.     

Cryptanalysis and Improvement of a Multi-User Quantum Communication Network Using χ-Type Entangled States

The security of a multi-user quantum communication network protocol using χ-type entangled states (Chang et al., J. Korean Phys. Soc. 61:1–5, 2012) is analyzed. We find that, by using one χ-type state in this protocol, two participants can only share 2 bits of information, not 4 bits as the authors stated. In addition, we give a special attack strategy by which an eavesdropper can elicit half of the secret information without being detected. Finally, we improve the protocol to be secure against all the present attacks.