Controlled quantum secure direct communication using a non-symmetric quantum channel with quantum superdense coding

We present a controlled quantum secure direct communication protocol that uses a 2-dimensional Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) entangled state and a 3-dimensional Bell-basis state and employs the high-dimensional quantum superdense coding, local collective unitary operations and entanglement swapping. The proposed protocol is secure and of high source capacity. It can effectively protect the communication against a destroying-travel-qubit-type attack. With this protocol, the information transmission is greatly increased. This protocol can also be modified, so that it can be used in a multi-party control system.     

Nonentagled qutrits in two way deterministic QKD

We consider the use of qutrits in a two way deterministic quantum cryptographic protocol which exhibits a higher level of security. We analyse the security of the protocol in the context of the Intercept Resend Strategy. The protocol which transmits a qutrit is naturally limited to not utilising all the available maximally overlapping basis due to a no go theorem not unlike the universal-NOT. We further propose another protocol to generalise the protocol above against the no-go theorem.     

A New Quantum Secure Direct Communication Protocol Using Decoherence-Free Subspace

A new quantum secure direct communication （QSDC） protocol is proposed by using decoherence free subspace （DFS） to avoid insecurity of the present QSDC protocols in a quantum noise channel. This protocol makes it easily for Bob and Alice to find eavesdropping in channel because the collective dephasing noise disappears in DFS. The probability of successful attack by Eve in this protocol is smaller than in BB84 protocol. Thus this protocol realizes secure QSDC and is feasible with present-day technology.     

High Efficiency of Two Efficient QSDC with Authentication Is at the Cost of Their Security

Two efficient protocols of quantum secure direct communication with authentication [Chin. Phys. Lett. 25 （2008） 2354] were recently proposed by Liu et al. to improve the efficiency of two protocols presented in [Phys. Rev. A 75 （2007） 026301] by four Pauli operations. We show that the high efficiency of the two protocols is at the expense of their security. The authenticator Trent can reach half the secret by a particular attack strategy in the first protocol. In the second protocol, not only Trent but also an eavesdropper outside can elicit half-information about the secret from the public declaration.     

Secure quantum sealed-bid auction

A new experimentally feasible and secure quantum sealed-bid auction protocol using quantum secure direct communication based on GHZ states is proposed. In this scheme all bidders Bob, Charlie, … , and Zach use M groups n-particle GHZ states to represent their bids. Here, an auctioneer gives the auction outcome by performing a sequence of n-particle GHZ-basis measurements on the final quantum states. It has been shown that using this method guarantees the honesty of the protocol, and malicious bidders can not collude with the auctioneers.     

Cryptanalysis of multiparty controlled quantum secure direct communication using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state

We analyze the security of multiparty controlled quantum secure direct communication using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state. It is shown that the receiver, using a special property of GHZ state, can illegally obtain 33.3% of the sender’s secret without any controller’s permission. The attack strategy is demonstrated in detail and an improvement of this protocol is discussed. The idea of this attack might be instructive for the cryptanalysis of quantum cryptographic protocols.     

Improving the security of secure quantum telephone against an attack with fake particles and local operations

The security of the secure quantum telephone protocol [X.J. Wen, Y. Liu, N.R. Zhou, Opt. Commun. 275 (2007) 278] is analyzed. It is shown that an eavesdropper can attack the communicators’ messages by using fake particles and local operations. Moreover, the essential reasons of the information leakage are discussed. Finally, a simple improvement of the secure quantum telephone protocol is proposed.     

Bidirectional quantum secure communication based on a shared private Bell state

We propose a secure bidirectional quantum communication protocol, which is based on a shared private quantum entangled channel, the highlight of our protocol is that the drawback “information leakage” is eliminated. Our protocol is similar but more efficient than a bidirectional quantum communication based on QKD & OTP (One-time pad).     

Large-capability quantum key distribution with entangled qutrits

A secure quantum key distribution protocol is proposed to distribute the three-dimensional secret message in a two-way quantum channel based on the entanglement of two-qutrit quantum system. The present protocol has an advantage over transmitting directly the secret message with large capacity since the distributed message has been imposed on nonorthogonal two-qutrit-entangled states by the sender using the superdense coding via local unitary operations. The security is ensured by the entanglement of the two-qutrit quantum system and the secure transmission of the traveling-particle sequence in the lossless and noiseless channel.     

Threshold Quantum Secret Sharing of Secure Direct Communication

We propose a （L, n）-threshold quantum secret sharing protocol of secure direct communication following some ideas of Zhang＇s protocol [Phys. Lett. A 342 （2005） 60] and Tokunaga et al.＇s protocol [Phys. Rev. A 71 （2005） 012314]. The sender distributes the classical secret shares to his or her n agents and each agent owns a secret share in advance. The sender＇s secure direct communication message can be extracted by an agent subset by collaboration in such a way that at least t or more agents can obtain the secret message with the mutual assistances but any t - 1 or fewer agents cannot. In contrast to the previous multiparty quantum secret sharing protocols in which the sender＇s secret message can be recovered only if all the agents collaborate, our protocol is more practical and more flexible.     

Scalable Quantum Secret Sharing Extended from Quantum Key Distribution

We suggest a general approach for extending quantum key distribution （Q, KD） protocols possessing discrete rotational symmetry into quantum secret sharing （QSS） schemes among multiparty, under certain conditions. Only local unitary operations are required for this generalization based on the almost mature technologies of Q, KD. Theoretically, the number of the participating partners can be arbitrary high. As an application of this method, we propose a fault-tolerant QSS protocol based on a fault-tolerant QKD implementation. The 6-state protocol is also discussed.     

Comment on: “Three-party quantum secure direct communication based on GHZ states” [Phys. Lett. A 354 (2006) 67]

The GHZ-state-based quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol [X.-R. Jin, et al., Phys. Lett. A 354 (2006) 67] and its improved version [Z. Man, Y. Xia, Chin. Phys. Lett. 24 (2007) 15] are analyzed from the aspect of security. It shows that much information of the transmitted secret message will be leaked out in both protocols.     

Quantum Key Distribution against Trojan Horse Attacks

Realistic experimental apparatus of quantum cryptography are imperfect, which may be utilized by a potential eavesdropper to eavesdrop on the communication. We show that quantum communication may be improved with quantum teleportation and entanglement swapping, which is robustly secure against the most general Trojan horse attacks. Our scheme is not an improvement of the communication apparatus, but the improvement of quantum communication protocol itself. We show that our modified schemes may be implemented with current technology.     

Quantum Key Distribution Using High-Dimensional Quantum Error-Avoiding Code

Using high-dimensional quantum error-avoiding code, we present two new quantum key distribution protocols over a collective noisy channel, i.e. six-photon and five-photon quantum error-avoiding codes. Compared with the previous protocols using four-photon and three-photon quantum error-avoiding code, the qubit efficiencies of the new protocols have increases of 16.67% and 5% respectively. In addition, the security of these protocols is analysed with a conclusion that the new protocols are much more secure than the four-photon and three-photon ones.     

A Modified Protocol of Quantum Key Distribution Based on Entanglement Swapping

By comparing Cabello＇s addendum to his quantum key distribution protocol [Phys. Rev. A 64 （2001） 024301], we propose a more convenient modified protocol based on the entanglement swapping which is secure against the eavesdropping strategy addressed by Zhang et al. [Phys. Rev. A 63 （2001）036301] and other existing types of attack.     

A Novel Application of Probabilistic Teleportation: p-Rabin Quantum Oblivious Transfer of a Qubit

So far, all existing quantum oblivious transfer protocols focused on realization of the oblivious transfer of a classical bit or classical bit-string. In this paper, p-Rabin quantum oblivious transfer of a qubit protocol is achieved by using a probabilistic teleportation protocol. As the probabilistic teleportation protocol is able to transfer an (un)known pure state with a certain probability, this feature makes the probabilistic teleportation protocol well fit for Rabin oblivious transfer. Here, this is the first time that the concept of qubit oblivious transfer is presented. Furthermore, p-Rabin quantum oblivious transfer of a qubit protocol can also be used for oblivious of a bit by encoding classical bit with two pre-agreed orthogonal states. Finally, security analysis shows that the protocol satisfies the security requirements of oblivious transfer, and what’s more, the discussion of relationship with no-go theorem demonstrates that the probabilistic teleportation protocol is able to evade the no-go theorem.

     

Improving the security of multiparty quantum secret sharing based on the improved Boström-Felbinger protocol

In a recent paper [Z.J. Zhang et al., Opt. Commun. 269 (2007) 418], a protocol of multiparty quantum secret sharing was presented. We study the security of this protocol and found that it is not secure for a dishonest agent Charlie, who can illegally elicit half of Alice’s secret message by himself. Finally a feasible improvement of this quantum secret sharing protocol is proposed.     

Eavesdropping on secure quantum telephone protocol with dishonest server

The crucial issue of quantum communication protocol is its security. In this paper, we show that in secure quantum telephone protocol proposed by Wen et al. [X. Wen et al., Opt. Commun. 275 (2007) 278-282] the dishonest server can obtain full information of the communication with zero risk of being detected.     

Improvement of Security of Three-Party Quantum Secure Direct Communication Based on GHZ States

A protocol for three-party quantum secure direct communication based on Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger （GHZ） states was recently proposed by 3in et al. [Phys. Lett. A 354 （2006） 67] By analysing the protocol we find some security loopholes, e.g. one bit of secret messages of a party （Alice in the original paper） can always be leaked straight to the public without any eavesdropping. These problems suggested previously are discussed and possible solutions are presented to improve the security of the original protocol.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of quantum broadcast communication and authentication protocol with a quantum one-time pad

The security of quantum broadcast communication(QBC) and authentication protocol based on Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger(GHZ) state and quantum one-time pad is analyzed. It is shown that there are some security issues in this protocol.Firstly, an external eavesdropper can take the intercept–measure–resend attack strategy to eavesdrop on 0.369 bit of every bit of the identity string of each receiver without being detected. Meanwhile, 0.524 bit of every bit of the secret message can be eavesdropped on without being detected. Secondly, an inner receiver can take the intercept–measure–resend attack strategy to eavesdrop on half of the identity string of the other's definitely without being checked. In addition, an alternative attack called the CNOT-operation attack is discussed. As for the multi-party QBC protocol, the attack efficiency increases with the increase of the number of users. Finally, the QBC protocol is improved to a secure one.