Quasi-secure quantum dialogue using single photons

A quasi-secure quantum dialogue protocol using single photons was proposed. Different from the previous entanglement-based protocols, the present protocol uses batches of single photons which run back and forth between the two parties. A round run for each photon makes the two parties each obtain a classical bit of information. So the efficiency of information transmission can be increased. The present scheme is practical and well within the present-day 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.     

Quantum secure direct communication by entangled qutrits and entanglement swapping

A protocol for quantum secure direct communication by using entangled qutrits and swapping quantum entanglement is proposed. In this protocol, a set of ordered two-qutrit entangled states is used as quantum information channels for sending secret messages directly. During the process of transmission of particles, the transmitted particles do not carry any secret messages and are transmitted only one time. The protocol has higher source capacity than protocols using usual two-dimensional Bell-basis states as quantum channel. The security is ensured by the unitary operations randomly performed on all checking groups before the particle sequence is transmitted and the application of entanglement swapping.     

Quantum secure direct dialogue using Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs

A two-step quantum secure direct dialogue protocol using Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen(EPR)pair block is proposed.In the protocol,the dialogue messages are encoded on series of qubits and sent through a quantum channel directly.The security of the protocol is assured by its connection to the two-step quantum secure direct communication protocol,which has been proved secure.This protocol has several advantages.It is a direct communication protocol that does not require a separate classical communication for the ciphertext.It has high capacity as two bits of secret messages can be transmitted by an EPR pair.As a dialogue protocol,the two parties can speak to each other either simultaneously or sequentially.     

Revisiting the security of quantum dialogue and bidirectional quantum secure direct communication

From the perspective of information theory and cryptography, the security of two quantum dialogue protocols and a bidirectional quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol was analyzed, and it was pointed out that the transmitted information would be partly leaked out in them. That is, any eavesdropper can elicit some information about the secrets from the public annunciations of the legal users. This phenomenon should have been strictly forbidden in a quantum secure communication. In fact, this problem exists in quite a few recent proposals and, therefore, it deserves more research attention in the following related study. Supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2006AA01Z419), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 90604023 and 60373059), the National Research Foundation for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant No. 20040013007), the National Laboratory for Modern Communications Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 9140C1101010601), the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing (Grant No. 4072020) and the ISN Open Foundation     

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.     

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.      

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.     

Maximally efficient protocols for direct secure quantum communication

Two protocols for deterministic secure quantum communication (DSQC) using GHZ-like states have been proposed. It is shown that one of these protocols is maximally efficient and that can be modified to an equivalent protocol of quantum secure direct communication (QSDC). Security and efficiency of the proposed protocols are analyzed and compared. It is shown that dense coding is sufficient but not essential for DSQC and QSDC protocols. Maximally efficient QSDC protocols are shown to be more efficient than their DSQC counterparts. This additional efficiency arises at the cost of message transmission rate.     

Improving the quantum secure direct communication by entangled qutrits and entanglement swapping against intercept-and-resend attack

The security of quantum secure direct communication by entangled qutrits and entanglement swapping [Y.B. Zhan et al., Opt. Commun. 282 (2009) 4633] is analyzed. It is shown that an eavesdropper can obtain all the secret without being found by a simple intercept-and-resend attack. Finally, a possible improvement to resist this attack is proposed.     

Information leakage in three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication with EPR pairs

In 2007, Wang et al. [M. Y. Wang and F. L. Yan, Chin. Phys. Lett. 24 (2007) 2486] proposed a three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication (3P-SQSDC) scheme with EPR pairs. Recently, Chong et al. [S. K. Chong and T. Hwang, Opt. Commun. OPTICS-15438 (2010(online))] proposed an enhancement on Wang et al.'s scheme. The communications in Chong et al.'s 3P-SQSDC can be paralleled and thus their scheme has higher efficiency. However, we find that both of the schemes have the information leakage, because the legitimate parties' secret messages have a strong correlation. This kind of security loophole leads to the consequence that any eavesdropper (Eve) can directly conjecture some information about the secrets without any active attack.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of a secure quantum sealed-bid auction

The security of a secure quantum sealed-bid auction protocol using quantum secure direct communication [Mosayeb Naseri, Opt. Commun. 282 (2009) 1939] is analyzed. It is shown that this protocol is unfair as a malicious bidder can obtain others’ bids without being found, and then he can optimize his bid to win the auction. Finally, a simple improvement to resist this attack is proposed.     

On the implementation of a deterministic secure coding protocol using polarization entangled photons

We demonstrate a prototype-implementation of deterministic information encoding for quantum key distribution (QKD) following the ping-pong coding protocol [K. Boström, T. Felbinger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89 (2002) 187902-1]. Due to the deterministic nature of this protocol the need for post-processing the key is distinctly reduced compared to non-deterministic protocols. In the course of our implementation we analyze the practicability of the protocol and discuss some security aspects of information transfer in such a deterministic scheme.     

Quantum packet switching generation using correlated photons in a microring resonator system

We propose a new system of a packet of quantum bits generation using a soliton pulse within a microring resonator. A quantum gate can be formed by using a polarization control unit incorporating into the system. The random signal and idler pairs can be formed within the photon correlation bandwidth, which can be generated, and randomly form the packet quantum bits, i.e. quantum packet switching. Each random code (logic) can be performed by combining the signal and idler of each entangled photon pair via the quantum gate. Results obtained have shown that the packet of quantum logic bits can be generated using the entangled photon pairs generated by the proposed system.     

Bidirectional quantum secure communication scheme based on Bell states and auxiliary particles

A bidirectional quantum secure communication protocol is presented. By introducing the auxiliary particle and utilizing the special character of Bell state, “correlation extractability”, our scheme cannot only discard the drawback, “information leakage”, but also is easy to implement.     

Quantum secure direct communication based on order rearrangement of single photons

We present an improvement of the protocol proposed by Lucamarini and Mancini [M. Lucamarini, S. Mancini, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 (2005) 140501] with techniques used in the protocol presented by Zhu et al. [A.D. Zhu, Y. Xia, Q.B. Fan, S. Zhang, Phys. Rev. A 73 (2006) 022338], namely the secret transmitting order of particles.     

Quantum secure direct communication over the collective amplitude damping channel

An efficient quantum secure direct communication protocol is presented over the amplitude damping channel. The protocol encodes logical bits in two-qubit noiseless states, and so it can function over a quantum channel subjected to collective amplitude damping. The feature of this protocol is that the sender encodes the secret directly on the quantum states, the receiver decodes the secret by performing determinate measurements, and there is no basis mismatch. The transmission’s safety is ensured by the nonorthogonality of the noiseless states traveling forward and backward on the quantum channel. Moreover, we construct the efficient quantum circuits to implement channel encoding and information encoding by means of primitive operations in quantum computation. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 60873191 and 60821001), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (Grant No. 200800131016), the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing (Grant No. 4072020), the National Laboratory for Modern Communications Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 9140C1101010601), and the ISN Open Foundation     

The enhancement of three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication scheme with EPR pairs

Recently, Wang et al. proposed a three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication (3P-SQSDC) scheme with EPR pairs, which enables three involved parties to exchange their secret messages simultaneously by using an EPR pair. This work proposed an enhancement on Wang et al.'s scheme. With the enhancement, the communications in the improved 3P-SQSDC can be paralleled and thus improves the protocol efficiency.     

利用单光子的量子对话

提出了一个利用一束单光子对话的方案.在方案中,利用两个不同的幺正操作对光子态进行编码,并且从一束光子中选择较大的子集进行窃听检查,该方案能够有效地抵御截取再发送袭击.此外,由于利用单光子没有利用EPR对,因此该方案是很实际的.该方案是绝对安全的.     

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.