On “Arbitrated quantum signature of classical messages against collective amplitude damping noise”

This study points out that a dishonest party in Yang and Wen's arbitrated quantum signature scheme [Opt. Comm. 283, (2010) 3198-3201] can reveal the other party's secret key without being detected by using the Trojan-horse attacks. Accordingly, the security requirements of a quantum signature, i.e. unforgeability and undeniability, may not be satisfied in their scheme.     

Arbitrated quantum signature of classical messages against collective amplitude damping noise

We give an arbitrated signature protocol of classical messages over a collective amplitude damping channel. We analyze its security and prove that it is secure over such a noisy quantum channel even if the arbitrator is compromised. The involvement of the arbitrator is also an appealing advantage in the implementation of a practical quantum distributed communication network.     

Erratum: Arbitrated quantum signature of classical messages against collective amplitude damping noise (Opt. Commun. 283 (2010) 3198-3201)

We discover an error in the quantum circuit in Fig. 2 in the original paper [Y.G. Yang, Q.Y. Wen. Opt. Commun. 283 (2010) 3198-3201]. Corrected results are obtained and presented in this paper.     

An arbitrated quantum signature scheme based on entanglement swapping with signer anonymity

<正>In this paper an arbitrated quantum signature scheme based on entanglement swapping is proposed.In this scheme a message to be signed is coded with unitary operators.Combining quantum measurement with quantum encryption, the signer can generate the signature for a given message.Combining the entangled states generated by the TTP’s Bell measurement with the signature information,the verifier can verify the authentication of a signature through a single quantum state measurement.Compared with previous schemes,our scheme is more efficient and less complex, furthermore,our scheme can ensure the anonymity of the signer.     

Enhanced arbitrated quantum signature scheme using Bell states

We investigate the existing arbitrated quantum signature schemes as well as their cryptanalysis, including intercept- resend attack and denial-of-service attack. By exploring the loopholes of these schemes, a malicious signatory may success- fully disavow signed messages, or the receiver may actively negate the signature from the signatory without being detected. By modifying the existing schemes, we develop counter-measures to these attacks using Bell states. The newly proposed scheme puts forward the security of arbitrated quantum signature. Furthermore, several valuable topics are also presented for further research of the quantum signature scheme.     

Quantum key distribution protocols with six-photon states against collective noise

Either collective-dephasing noise or collective-rotation noise is considered, two efficient quantum key distribution protocols are presented. With eight product states of three EPR pairs, two bits of secret key can be distributed successfully in each six-photon state. Comparing with the four-photon secret key distribution protocols, the security is also enhanced by using three sets (or more) of measurement bases.     

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     

A weak blind signature scheme based on quantum cryptography

In this paper, we present a weak blind signature scheme based on the correlation of EPR (Einstein-Padolsky-Rosen) pairs. Different from classical blind signature schemes and current quantum signature schemes, our quantum blind signature scheme could guarantee not only the unconditionally security but also the anonymity of the message owner. To achieve that, quantum key distribution and one-time pad are adopted in our scheme. Experimental analysis proved that our scheme have the characteristics of non-counterfeit, non-disavowal, blindness and traceability. It has a wide application to E-payment system, E-government, E-business, and etc.     

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.     

Quantum threshold group signature

In most situations, the signer is generally a single person. However, when the message is written on behalf of an organization, a valid message may require the approval or consent of several persons. Threshold signature is a solution to this problem. Generally speaking, as an authority which can be trusted by all members does not exist, a threshold signature scheme without a trusted party appears more attractive. Following some ideas of the classical Shamir’s threshold signature scheme, a quantum threshold group signature one is proposed. In the proposed scheme, only t or more of n persons in the group can generate the group signature and any t − 1 or fewer ones cannot do that. In the verification phase, any t or more of n signature receivers can verify the message and any t − 1 or fewer receivers cannot verify the validity of the signature. Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program)(Grant No. 2007CB311100), the National High-Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2006AA01Z419 and 2006AA01Z440), the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90604023), the Scientific Research Common Program of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education (Grant No. KM200810005004), the Scientific Research Foundation for the Youth of Beijing University of Technology (Grant No. 97007016200701), the Doctoral Scientific Research Activation Foundation of Beijing University of Technology (Grant No. 52007016200702), the ISN Open Foundation, and the National Laboratory for Modern Communications Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 9140C1101010601)     

Fault tolerant two-step quantum secure direct communication protocol against collective noises

This work proposes two fault tolerant quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocols which are robust against two kinds of collective noises: the collective-dephasing noises and the collective-rotation noises, respectively. The two QSDC protocols are constructed from four-qubit DF states which consist of two logical qubits. The receiver simply performs two Bell state measurements (rather than four-qubit joint measurements) to obtain the secret message. The protocols have qubit effciency twice that of ...     

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.     

Failure of Kak quantum key distribution protocol

Kak’s quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol provides not only the distribution but also the integrity of secret key simultaneously in quantum channel. Consequently the additional exchange of information, used to check whether an eavesdropper exists, is unnecessary. In this comment, we will point out the failure of Kak’s protocol and show that Kak’s protocol does not have the joint distribution and integration that the author declares in [1].     

Threshold proxy quantum signature scheme with threshold shared verification

A threshold proxy quantum signature scheme with threshold shared verification is proposed. An original signer could authorize a group as its proxy signers. Then only t or more of n persons in the proxy group can generate the proxy signature on behalf of the original signer and any t − 1 or fewer ones cannot do that. When the proxy signature needs to be verified, any t or more of n persons belonging to the verification group can verify the message and any t − 1 or fewer ones cannot verify the validity of the proxy signature. Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program)(Grant No. 2007CB311100), the National High-Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2006AA01Z419 and 20060101Z4015), the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90604023), the Scientific Research Common Program of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education (Grant No. KM200810005004), the Scientific Research Foundation for the Youth of Beijing University of Technology (Grant No. 97007016200701), the Doctoral Scientific Research Activation Foundation of Beijing University of Technology (Grant No. 52007016200702), and the National Laboratory for Modern Communications Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 9140C1101010601)     

Effects of single-qubit quantum noise on entanglement purification

We study the stability under quantum noise effects of the quantum privacy amplification protocol for the purification of entanglement in quantum cryptography. We assume that the E91 protocol is used by two communicating parties (Alice and Bob) and that the eavesdropper Eve uses the isotropic Bužek-Hillery quantum copying machine to extract information. Entanglement purification is then operated by Alice and Bob by means of the quantum privacy amplification protocol and we present a systematic numerical study of the impact of all possible single-qubit noise channels on this protocol. We find that both the qualitative behavior of the fidelity of the purified state as a function of the number of purification steps and the maximum level of noise that can be tolerated by the protocol strongly depend on the specific noise channel. These results provide valuable information for experimental implementations of the quantum privacy amplification protocol.     

The two-qubit amplitude damping channel: Characterization using quantum stabilizer codes

A protocol based on quantum error correction based characterization of quantum dynamics (QECCD) is developed for quantum process tomography on a two-qubit system interacting dissipatively with a vacuum bath. The method uses a 5-qubit quantum error correcting code that corrects arbitrary errors on the first two qubits, and also saturates the quantum Hamming bound. The dissipative interaction with a vacuum bath allows for both correlated and independent noise on the two-qubit system. We study the dependence of the degree of the correlation of the noise on evolution time and inter-qubit separation.     

Three-particle QKD protocol against a collective noise

The research on decoherence-free subspace has both theoretical and practical significance. DFS is a subspace of quantum system states which is robust against a specific form of decoherence. The method of constructing DFS based algebra, which is different from the way based on the special Bell states, is introduced. Then a three-particle QKD protocol against collective-bit flipping noise is presented according to this method. Finally, we make a security analysis of our protocol.     

Multi-proxy quantum group signature scheme with threshold shared verification

A multi-proxy quantum group signature scheme with threshold shared verification is proposed. An original signer may authorize a proxy group as his proxy agent. Then only the cooperation of all the signers in the proxy group can generate the proxy signature on behalf of the original signer. In the scheme, any t or more of n receivers can verify the message and any t - 1 or fewer receivers cannot verify the validity of the proxy signature.     

On the optimality of individual entangling-probe attacks against BB84 quantum key distribution

Some MIT researchers [Phys. Rev. A 75, 042327 (2007)] have recently claimed that their implementation of the Slutsky-Brandt attack [Phys. Rev. A 57, 2383 (1998); Phys. Rev. A 71, 042312 (2005)] to the BB84 quantum-key-distribution (QKD) protocol puts the security of this protocol “to the test” by simulating “the most powerful individual-photon attack” [Phys. Rev. A 73, 012315 (2006)]. A related unfortunate news feature by a scientific journal [G. Brumfiel, Quantum cryptography is hacked, News @ Nature (april 2007); Nature 447, 372 (2007)] has spurred some concern in the QKD community and among the general public by misinterpreting the implications of this work. The present article proves the existence of a stronger individual attack on QKD protocols with encrypted error correction, for which tight bounds are shown, and clarifies why the claims of the news feature incorrectly suggest a contradiction with the established “old-style” theory of BB84 individual attacks. The full implementation of a quantum cryptographic protocol includes a reconciliation and a privacy-amplification stage, whose choice alters in general both the maximum extractable secret and the optimal eavesdropping attack. The authors of [Phys. Rev. A 75, 042327 (2007)] are concerned only with the error-free part of the so-called sifted string, and do not consider faulty bits, which, in the version of their protocol, are discarded. When using the provably superior reconciliation approach of encrypted error correction (instead of error discard), the Slutsky-Brandt attack is no more optimal and does not “threaten” the security bound derived by Lütkenhaus [Phys. Rev. A 59, 3301 (1999)]. It is shown that the method of Slutsky and collaborators [Phys. Rev. A 57, 2383 (1998)] can be adapted to reconciliation with error correction, and that the optimal entangling probe can be explicitly found. Moreover, this attack fills Lütkenhaus bound, proving that it is tight (a fact which was not previously known).