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.     

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.     

Circular threshold quantum secret sharing

This paper proposes a circular threshold quantum secret sharing （TQSS） scheme with polarized single photons. A polarized single photon sequence runs circularly among any t or more of n parties and any t or more of n parties can reconstruct the secret key when they collaborate. It shows that entanglement is not necessary for quantum secret sharing. Moreover, the theoretic efficiency is improved to approach 100% as the single photons carrying the secret key are deterministically forwarded among any t or more of n parties, and each photon can carry one bit of information without quantum storage. This protocol is feasible with current technology.     

Quantum secure direct communication network with hyperentanglement

We propose a quantum secure direct communication protocol with entanglement swapping and hyperentanglement.Any two users, Alice and Bob, can communicate with each other in a quantum network, even though there is no direct quantum channel between them. The trust center, Trent, who provides a quantum channel to link them by performing entanglement swapping, cannot eavesdrop on their communication. This protocol provides a high channel capacity because it uses hyperentanglement, which can be generated using a beta barium borate crystal.     

量子直接通信

量子直接通信是量子通信中的一个重要分支, 它是一种不需要事先建立密钥而直接传输机密信息的新型通信模式. 本综述将介绍量子直接通信的基本原理, 回顾量子直接通信的发展历程, 从最早的高效量子直接通信协议、两步量子直接通信模型、量子一次一密直接通信模型等, 到抗噪声的量子直接通信模型以及基于单光子多自由度量子态及超纠缠态的量子直接通信模型, 最后介绍量子直接通信的研究现状并展望其发展未来.     

Quantum broadcast communication

Broadcast encryption allows the sender to securely distribute his/her secret to a dynamically changing group of users over a broadcast channel. In this paper, we just take account of a simple broadcast communication task in quantum scenario, in which the central party broadcasts his secret to multi-receiver via quantum channel. We present three quantum broadcast communication schemes. The first scheme utilizes entanglement swapping and Greenberger--Horne--Zeilinger state to fulfil a task that the central party broadcasts the secret to a group of receivers who share a group key with him. In the second scheme, based on dense coding, the central party broadcasts the secret to multi-receiver, each of which shares an authentication key with him. The third scheme is a quantum broadcast communication scheme with quantum encryption, in which the central party can broadcast the secret to any subset of the legal receivers.     

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...     

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.     

噪声情况下的量子网络直接通信

提出和研究了噪声情况下的量子网络直接通信. 通信过程中所有量子节点共享多粒子Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ)量子纠缠态; 发送节点将手中共享的GHZ态的粒子作为控制比特、传输秘密信息的粒子作为目标比特, 应用控制非门(CNOT)操作; 每个接收节点将手中共享GHZ 态的粒子作为控制比特、接收到的秘密信息粒子作为目标比特, 再次应用CNOT门操作从而获得含误码的秘密信息. 每个接收节点从秘密信息中提取部分作为检测比特串, 并将剩余的秘密信息应用奇偶校验矩阵纠正其中存在的比特翻转错误, 所有接收节点获得纠正后的秘密信息. 对协议安全、吞吐效率、通信效率等进行了分析和讨论.     

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

Based on χ-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 χ-type entangled states |χ00 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.     

Economical quantum secure direct communication network with single photons

In this paper a scheme for quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) network is proposed with a sequence of polarized single photons. The single photons are prepared originally in the same state $\vert 0\rangle$ by the servers on the network, which will reduce the difficulty for the legitimate users to check eavesdropping largely. The users code the information on the single photons with two unitary operations which do not change their measuring bases. Some decoy photons, which are produced by operating the sample photons with a Hadamard, are used for preventing a potentially dishonest server from eavesdropping the quantum lines freely. This scheme is an economical one as it is the easiest way for QSDC network communication securely.     

量子通信研究进展与应用

量子通信利用量子信道进行信息的编码、传输和处理,具有安全性高和信道容量高等特点。量子保密通信以信息安全为主要目的,包括量子密钥分发、量子安全直接通信和量子秘密共享等模式。利用量子纠缠,量子隐形传态根据事先已经分发的纠缠粒子对实现不传输实物粒子而传输未知粒子的状态,量子密集编码通过传输一个粒子而实现两个粒子信息的传输,这些是经典通信无法实现的任务。文章简单介绍量子通信的内容和进展情况。     

Measurement-device-independent quantum secure direct communication

Quantum secure direct communication(QSDC)is a unique technique,which supports the secure transmission of confidential information directly through a quantum channel without the need for a secret key and for ciphertext.Hence this secure communication protocol fundamentally differs from its conventional counterparts.In this article,we report the first measurement-deviceindependent(MDI)QSDC protocol relying on sequences of entangled photon pairs and single photons.Explicitly,it eliminates the security loopholes associated with the measurement device.Additionally,this MDI technique is capable of doubling the communication distance of its conventional counterpart operating without using our MDI technique.We also conceive a protocol associated with linear optical Bell-basis measurements,where only two of the four Bell-basis states could be measured.When the number of qubits in a sequence reduces to 1,the MDI-QSDC protocol degenerates to a deterministic MDI quantum key distribution protocol.     

Quantum broadcast communication with authentication

Two simple quantum broadcast communication schemes are proposed.A central party can broadcast his secret message to all the legitimate receivers simultaneously.Compared with the three schemes proposed recently (Wang et al.2007 Chin.Phys.16 1868),the proposed schemes have the advantages of consuming fewer quantum and classical resources,lessening the difficulty and intensity of necessary operations,and having higher efficiency.     

Quantum secure direct communication and deterministic secure quantum communication

In this review article, we review the recent development of quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) and deterministic secure quantum communication (DSQC) which both are used to transmit secret message, including the criteria for QSDC, some interesting QSDC protocols, the DSQC protocols and QSDC network, etc. The difference between these two branches of quantum communication is that DSQC requires the two parties exchange at least one bit of classical information for reading out the message in each qubit, and QSDC does not. They are attractive because they are deterministic, in particular, the QSDC protocol is fully quantum mechanical. With sophisticated quantum technology in the future, the QSDC may become more and more popular. For ensuring the safety of QSDC with single photons and quantum information sharing of single qubit in a noisy channel, a quantum privacy amplification protocol has been proposed. It involves very simple CHC operations and reduces the information leakage to a negligible small level. Moreover, with the one-party quantum error correction, a relation has been established between classical linear codes and quantum one-party codes, hence it is convenient to transfer many good classical error correction codes to the quantum world. The one-party quantum error correction codes are especially designed for quantum dense coding and related QSDC protocols based on dense coding.      

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

In this comment, we show that the special attack [S.-J. Qin, F. Gao, Q.-Y. Wen, F.-C. Zhu, Opt. Commun. 281 (2008) 5472.], which claims to be able to obtain all the transmitted secret message bit values of the protocol of the multiparty quantum secret sharing of secure direct communication using single photons with random phase shift operations, fails. Furthermore, a class of similar attacks are also shown to fail to extract the secrete message.     

Faithful quantum secure direct communication protocol against collective noise

An improved quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol is proposed in this paper.Blocks of entangled photon pairs are transmitted in two steps in which secret messages are transmitted directly.The single logical qubits and unitary operations under decoherence free subspaces are presented and the generalized Bell states are constructed which are immune to the collective noise.Two steps of qubit transmission are used in this protocol to guarantee the security of communication.The security of the protocol against various attacks are discussed.     

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。     

Quantum secure direct communication via partially entangled states

We present in this paper a quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol by using partially entangled states. In the scheme a third party (Trent) is introduced to authenticate the participants. After authentication, Alice can directly, deterministically and successfully send a secret message to Bob. The security of the scheme is also discussed and confirmed.