Semiquantum key distribution allows a quantum party to share a random key with a "classical" party who only can prepare and measure qubits in the computational basis or reorder some qubits when he has access to a quantum channel. In this work, we present a protocol where a secret key can be established between a quantum user and an almost classical user who only needs the quantum ability to access quantum channels, by securely delegating quantum computation to a quantum server. We show the proposed protocol is robust even when the delegated quantum server is a powerful adversary, and is experimentally feasible with current technology. As one party of our protocol is the most quantum-resource efficient, it can be more practical and significantly widen the applicability scope of quantum key distribution.
Semiquantum key distribution allows a quantum party to share a random key with a "classical" party who only can prepare and measure qubits in the computational basis or reorder some qubits when he has access to a quantum channel. In this work, we present a protocol where a secret key can be established between a quantum user and an almost classical user who only needs the quantum ability to access quantum channels, by securely delegating quantum computation to a quantum server. We show the proposed protocol is robust even when the delegated quantum server is a powerful adversary, and is experimentally feasible with current technology. As one party of our protocol is the most quantum-resource efficient, it can be more practical and significantly widen the applicability scope of quantum key distribution.
In this work, we design a quantum key distribution protocol, allowing two limited semiquantum or ``classical'' users to establish a shared secret key with the help of a fully quantum server. A semiquantum user can prepare and measure qubits only in the computational basis and so must rely on this quantum server to produce qubits in alternative bases and also to perform alternative measurements. However, we assume that the server is untrusted and we prove the unconditional security of our protocol even in the worst case: when this quantum server is an all-powerful adversary. We also compute a lower bound of the key rate of our protocol, in the asymptotic scenario, as a function of the observed error rate in the channel, allowing us to compute the maximally tolerated error of our protocol. Our results show that a semiquantum protocol may hold similar security to a fully quantum one.
Recently, Boyer et al. presented a novel semiquantum key distribution protocol [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 (2007) 140501 ] by using four quantum states, each of which is randomly prepared in the Z or X basis. Here we present a semi-quantum key distribution protocol by using maximally entangled states in which quantum Alice shares a secret key with classical Bob. Quantum Alice has the ability to prepare Bell states and perform Bell basis or computational basis measurement. Classical Bob is restricted to measuring, preparing a particle in the computational basis, reflecting or reordering the particles. The qubit efficiency of the protocol improves to 50% and the protocol can be modified to a measure-resend protocol or a protocol without quantum memory. We also show that the protocol is secure against eavesdropping.
In this paper, we propose a distributed secure delegated quantum computation protocol, by which an almost classical client can delegate a (dk)-qubit quantum circuit to d quantum servers, where each server is equipped with a 2k-qubit register that is used to process only k qubits of the delegated quantum circuit. None of servers can learn any information about the input and output of the computation. The only requirement for the client is that he or she has ability to prepare four possible qubits in the state of (|0⟩+eiθ|1⟩)/2, where θ∈{0,π/2,π,3π/2}. The only requirement for servers is that each pair of them share some entangled states (|0⟩|+⟩+|1⟩|−⟩)/2 as ancillary qubits. Instead of assuming that all servers are interconnected directly by quantum channels, we introduce a third party in our protocol that is designed to distribute the entangled states between those servers. This would simplify the quantum network because the servers do not need to share a quantum channel. In the end, we show that our protocol can guarantee unconditional security of the computation under the situation where all servers, including the third party, are honest-but-curious and allowed to cooperate with each other.
Quantum key distribution, which allows two distant parties to share an unconditionally secure cryptographic key, promises to play an important role in the future of communication. For this reason such technique has attracted many theoretical and experimental efforts, thus becoming one of the most prominent quantum technologies of the last decades. The security of the key relies on quantum mechanics and therefore requires the users to be capable of performing quantum operations, such as state preparation or measurements in multiple bases. A natural question is whether and to what extent these requirements can be relaxed and the quantum capabilities of the users reduced. Here we demonstrate a novel quantum key distribution scheme, where users are fully classical. In our protocol, the quantum operations are performed by an untrusted third party acting as a server, which gives the users access to a superimposed single photon, and the key exchange is achieved via interaction-free measurements on the shared state. We also provide a full security proof of the protocol by computing the secret key rate in the realistic scenario of finite-resources, as well as practical experimental conditions of imperfect photon source and detectors. Our approach deepens the understanding of the fundamental principles underlying quantum key distribution and, at the same time, opens up new interesting possibilities for quantum cryptography networks
Semiquantum key distribution protocols are designed to allow two parties to establish a shared secret key, secure against an all-powerful adversary, even when one of the users is restricted to measuring and preparing quantum states in one single basis. While interesting from a theoretical standpoint, these protocols have the disadvantage that a two-way quantum communication channel is necessary which generally limits their theoretical efficiency and noise tolerance. In this paper, we construct a semiquantum key distribution (SQKD) protocol which actually takes advantage of this necessary two-way channel, and, after performing an information theoretic security analysis against collective attacks, we show it is able to tolerate a channel noise level higher than any prior SQKD protocol to date. We also compare the noise tolerance of our protocol to other two-way fully quantum protocols, along with BB84 with classical advantage distillation. We also comment on some practical issues involving semiquantum key distribution (in particular, concerning the potential complexity in physical implementation of our protocol as compared with other standard QKD protocols). Finally, we develop techniques that can be applied to the security analysis of other (S)QKD protocols reliant on a two-way quantum communication channel.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols make it possible for two quantum parties to generate a secret shared key. Semiquantum key distribution (SQKD) protocols, such as ``QKD with classical Bob'' and ``QKD with classical Alice'' (that have both been proven robust), achieve this goal even if one of the parties is classical. However, existing SQKD protocols are not experimentally feasible with current technology. Here we suggest a protocol, ``Classical Alice with a controllable mirror,'' that can be experimentally implemented with current technology (using four-level systems instead of qubits), and we prove it to be robust.