Eavesdropping in a quantum secret sharing protocol based on Grover algorithm and its solution

A detailed analysis has showed that the quantum secret sharing protocol based on the Grover algorithm (Phys Rev A, 2003, 68: 022306) is insecure. A dishonest receiver may obtain the full information without being detected. A quantum secret-sharing protocol is presents here, which mends the security loophole of the original secret-sharing protocol, and doubles the information capacity.     

Efficient multi-party quantum state sharing of an arbitrary two-qubit state

We present an efficient scheme for sharing an arbitrary two-qubit quantum state with n agents. In this scheme, the sender Alice first prepares an n + 2-particle GHZ state and introduces a Controlled-Not (CNOT) gate operation. Then, she utilizes the n + 2-particle entangled state as the quantum resource. After setting up the quantum channel, she performs one Bell-state measurement and another single-particle measurement, rather than two Bell-state measurements. In addition, except that the designated recover of the quantum secret just keeps two particles, almost all agents only hold one particle in their hands respectively, and thus they only need to perform a single-particle measurement on the respective particle with the basis X. Compared with other schemes based on entanglement swapping, our scheme needs less qubits as the quantum resources and exchanges less classical information, and thus obtains higher communication efficiency.     

Multiparty quantum secret sharing with Bell states and Bell measurements

We present a multiparty quantum secret sharing scheme and analyze its security. In this scheme, the sender Alice takes EPR pairs in Bell states as quantum resources. In order to obtain the shared key, all participants only need to perform Bell measurements, not to perform any local unitary operation. The total efficiency in this scheme approaches 100% as the classical information exchanged is not necessary except for the eavesdropping checks.     

On “multiparty quantum secret sharing with Bell states and Bell measurements”

Recently, Shi et al. proposed a multiparty quantum secret sharing (QSS) using Bell states and Bell measurements. This study shows that their scheme has a pitfall that could be mounted to a collusion attack if precaution has not been taken in implementation. That is, two dishonest agents can collude to reveal the secret without the help of the others. A possible solution is also presented to avoid the attack.     

Fault tolerant quantum secret sharing against collective-amplitude-damping noise

We present a quantum secret sharing protocol against collective-amplitude-damping noise. Each logical qubit is encoded in two qubit noiseless states. So it can function over such a noisy channel. The two agents encode their messages on each logical qubit only by performing a permutation operation on two physical qubits. Although each logical qubit received by each agent only carries a bit of information, the boss Alice can read out her agents’ information by discriminating two orthogonal states by performin...     

Quantum secret sharing between multiparty and multiparty with four states

A protocol of quantum secret sharing between multiparty and multiparty with four states was presented. It was shown that this protocol can nullify the Trojan horse attack with a multi-photon signal, the fake-signal attack with Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs, the attack with single photons, and the attack with invisible photons. In addition, the upper bounds of the average success probabilities were given for dishonest agent eavesdropping encryption using the fake-signal attack with any two-particle entangled states. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10671054), the Key Project of Science and Technology Research of Education Ministry of China (Grant No. 207011) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province, China (Grant Nos. A2005000140 and 07M006)     

An efficient quantum secret sharing protocol with orthogonal product states

An efficient quantum secret sharing protocol with orthogonal product states in the 33 Hilbert space is presented. The particles in the orthogonal product states form two particle sequences. One sequence is sent to Bob and the other is sent to Charlie after rearranging the particle orders. With the help of Alice, Bob and Charlie make the corresponding local measurement to obtain the information of the or- thogonal product states prepared. This protocol has many distinct features such as great capacity and high efficiency.     

Quantum secret sharing between m-party and n-party with six states

A quantum secret sharing scheme between an m-party group and an n-party group is proposed using three conjugate bases.A sequence of single photons,each of which is prepared in one of the six states,is used directly to encode classical information in the quantum secret sharing process.In this scheme,each of all m members in group 1 chooses randomly his/her own secret key individually and independently,and directly encodes his/her respective secret information on the states of single photons via unitary opera...     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of a quantum secret sharing scheme based on x-type entangled states

In the paper [2010 Chin. Phys. B 19 050306], Yang et al. put forward a novel three-party quantum secret sharing protocol of secure direct communication based on χ-type entangled states, they claimed that the scheme is secure. However, in this paper, we study the security of the protocol and find that it is insecure. Applying intercept and resend attack, the agent Bob can obtain Alice’s secret without the help from the other agent Charlie. In the end, we give our effective modification for its improvement.     

Analysis of a kind of quantum cryptographic schemes based on secret sharing

Recently, Yang et al. proposed a kind of quantum cryptographic schemes based on secret sharing. The main idea is drawn from the case, where any n participants who share a secret K can co-operate as K does. This process can be applied to encryption, authentication, signature and so on. Unfortunately, since there is no identity authentication of the share’s holder, these schemes inherit the limitation of secret sharing in practice. If some participants do not follow the protocol, the protocol would be a failu...     

Member expansion in quantum (t,n) threshold secret sharing schemes

A protocol for member expansion in quantum (t,n) threshold secret sharing schemes was proposed. Without a trusted center and modifying the shares of old participants, the protocol needs that t (t is the threshold) old participants cooperate to generate the new share. Compared with the previous secret sharing protocols, the proposed protocol has the advantage of joining new participants agilely.     

Three-party quantum secret sharing of secure direct communication based on x-type entangled states

Based on x-type entangled states and the two-step protocol [Deng F G, Long G L and Liu X S 2003 Phys. Rev. A 68 042317], a quantum secret sharing protocol of secure direct communication based on x-type entangled states ｜X00〉3214 is proposed. Using some interesting entanglement properties of this state, the agent entirety can directly obtain the secret message from the message sender only if they collaborate together. The security of the scheme is also discussed.     

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.     

A special attack on the multiparty quantum secret sharing of secure direct communication using single photons

The security of a multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol [L.F. Han, Y.M. Liu, J. Liu, Z.J. Zhang, Opt. Commun. 281 (2008) 2690] is reexamined. It is shown that any one dishonest participant can obtain all the transmitted secret bits by a special attack, where the controlled-(-iσ_y) gate is employed to invalidate the role of the random phase shift operation. Furthermore, a possible way to resist this attack is discussed.     

Cryptanalysis of multiparty quantum secret sharing with Bell states and Bell measurements

The security of multiparty quantum secret sharing with Bell states and Bell measurements [R.H. Shi et al., Opt. Commun. 283 (2010) 2476] is analyzed. It is shown that the first agent and the last one can gain access to the dealer's secret if they collaborate in this protocol. Therefore, this protocol does not satisfy the security requirement of quantum secret sharing.     

Cryptanalysis of multiparty quantum secret sharing with collective eavesdropping-check

In the paper [S. Lin, Q.Y. Wen, S.J. Qin, F.C. Zhu, Opt. Commun. 282 (2009) 4455], Lin et al. put forward a quantum secret sharing protocol in which the collective eavesdropping-check is employed. We study the security of this protocol and find that it is insecure. Two dishonest agents may collaborate to eavesdrop (half of) Alice's secret messages without introducing any error.     

Eavesdropping on the improved three-party quantum secret sharing protocol

Lin et al. [Song Lin, Fei Gao, Qiao-yan Wen, Fu-chen Zhu, Opt. Commun. 281 (2008) 4553] pointed out that the multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol [Zhan-jun Zhang, Gan Gao, Xin Wang, Lian-fang Han, Shou-hua Shi, Opt. Commun. 269 (2007) 418] is not secure 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 not secure. Finally, a further improved three-party quantum secret sharing protocol is proposed.     

Fault tolerant three-party quantum secret sharing against collective noise

We present two robust three-party quantum secret sharing protocols against two kinds of collective noise. Each logical qubit is made up of two physical qubits and is invariant under a collective noise. The two agents encode their message on each logical qubit with two unitary physical operations on two physical qubits. As each logical qubit received by each agent can carry two bits of information and the classical information exchanged is reduced largely, these protocols have a high intrinsic efficiency. Moreover, the boss Alice can read out her agents' information with two Bell-state measurements on each four-qubit system, not four-photon joint measurements.     

Comment on “Eavesdropping on the improved three-party quantum secret sharing protocol”

In the comment, we show that the attack [G. Gao, Opt. Commun. 43 (2010) 902], which claims to be able to eavesdrop all the transmitted secret message of the improved three-party quantum secret sharing protocol [S. Lin, et al., Opt. Commun. 281 (2008) 4553], is invalid in the sense that it introduces 25% error rate.     

An enhancement on Shi et al.'s multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol

Recently, Shi et al. proposed a multiparty quantum secret sharing (QSS) using Bell states and Bell measurements. In their protocol, for sharing two classical bits, all parties have to possess two photons after entanglement swapping. This paper proposes an enhancement of Shi et al.'s protocol. Based on the idea that all parties (except dealer) possess two photons to share two classical bits, the qubit efficiency has further improved by removing the photons the dealer has to hold in Shi et al.'s protocol. Moreover, an insider attack is also prevented in the proposed scheme.