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arXiv:1512.00602

Relativistic quantum cryptography

Jędrzej Kaniewski

Published Dec 2, 2015• 6 citations
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Abstract

In this thesis we explore the benefits of relativistic constraints for cryptography. We first revisit non-communicating models and its applications in the context of interactive proofs and cryptography. We propose bit commitment protocols whose security hinges on communication constraints and investigate its limitations. We explain how some non-communicating models can be justified by special relativity and study the limitations of such models. In particular, we present a framework for analysing security of multiround relativistic protocols. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to analysing specific protocols. We start by considering a recently proposed two-round quantum bit commitment protocol. We propose a fault-tolerant variant of the protocol, present a complete security analysis and report on an experimental implementation performed in collaboration with an experimental group at the University of Geneva. We also propose a new, multiround classical bit commitment protocol and prove its security against classical adversaries. This demonstrates that in the classical world an arbitrarily long commitment can be achieved even if the agents are restricted to occupy a finite region of space. Moreover, the protocol is easy to implement and we report on an experiment performed in collaboration with the Geneva group.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1512.00602

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In this thesis we explore the benefits of relativistic constraints for cryptography. We first revisit non-communicating models and its applications in the context of interactive proofs and cryptography. We propose bit commitment protocols whose security hinges on communication constraints and investigate its limitations. We explain how some non-communicating models can be justified by special relativity and study the limitations of such models. In particular, we present a framework for analysing security of multiround relativistic protocols. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to analysing specific protocols. We start by considering a recently proposed two-round quantum bit commitment protocol. We propose a fault-tolerant variant of the protocol, present a complete security analysis and report on an experimental implementation performed in collaboration with an experimental group at the University of Geneva. We also propose a new, multiround classical bit commitment protocol and prove its security against classical adversaries. This demonstrates that in the classical world an arbitrarily long commitment can be achieved even if the agents are restricted to occupy a finite region of space. Moreover, the protocol is easy to implement and we report on an experiment performed in collaboration with the Geneva group.
Bit commitment is a fundamental cryptographic primitive in which Alice wishes to commit a secret bit to Bob. Perfectly secure bit commitment between two mistrustful parties is impossible through an asynchronous exchange of quantum information. Perfect security is, however, possible when Alice and Bob each split into several agents exchanging classical information at times and locations suitably chosen to satisfy specific relativistic constraints. In this Letter we first revisit a previously proposed scheme [C. Crépeau et al., Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 7073, 407 (2011)] that realizes bit commitment using only classical communication. We prove that the protocol is secure against quantum adversaries for a duration limited by the light-speed communication time between the locations of the agents. We then propose a novel multiround scheme based on finite-field arithmetic that extends the commitment time beyond this limit, and we prove its security against classical attacks. Finally, we present an implementation of these protocols using dedicated hardware and we demonstrate a 2 ms-long bit commitment over a distance of 131 km. By positioning the agents on antipodal points on the surface of Earth, the commitment time could possibly be extended to 212 ms.
In this thesis we have studied how to exploit relativistic constraints such as the non-superluminal signalling principle to design secure cryptographic primitives like position-verification and bit commitment. According to non-superluminal signalling principle, no physical carrier of information can travel faster than the speed of light. This put a constraint on the communication time between two distant stations. One can consider this delay in information transfer as a temporal non-communication constraint. Cryptographic primitives like bit-commitment, oblivious transfer can be implemented with perfect secrecy under such non-communication assumption between the agents. The first part of this thesis has studied how non-signalling constraints can be used for secure position verification. Here, we have discussed about a strategy which can attack any position verification scheme. In the next part of this thesis we have discussed about the nonlocal games, relevant for studying relativistic bit commitment protocols. We have established an upper bound on the classical value of such family of games. The last part of this thesis discusses about two relativistic bit commitment protocols and their security against classical adversaries. We conclude this thesis by giving a brief summary of the content of each chapter and mentioning interesting open problems. These open problems can be very useful for better understanding of the role of spacetime constraints such as non-superluminal signalling in designing perfectly secure cryptographic primitives.
Quantum mechanics, which describes the behaviour of matter and energy on very small scales, is one of the most successful theories in the history of science. Einstein's theory of special relativity, which describes the relationship between space and time, is likewise a highly successful and widely accepted theory. And yet there is a well-documented tension between the two theories, to the extent that it is still not clear that the two can ever be reconciled. This thesis is concerned with furthering the current understanding of the relationship between quantum mechanics and special relativity. In the first part of the thesis we study the behaviour of quantum information in relativistic spacetime. The field of quantum information arose from the realisation that quantum information has a number of crucial properties that distinguish it from classical information, such as the no-cloning property, quantum contextuality, and quantum discord. More recently, it has been realised that placing quantum information under relativistic constraints leads to the emergence of further unique features which are not exhibited by either non-relativistic quantum information or relativistic classical information; as part of this ongoing research programme we develop a new relativistic quantum `paradox' which puts pressure on conventional views about the spatiotemporal persistence of quantum states over time. We then study a new set of relativistic quantum protocols which involve the distribution of entangled states over spacetime, defining one task involving the distribution of the two halves of a known entangled state, and another task involving the distribution of the two halves of an unknown entangled state. The second part of the thesis deals with relativistic quantum cryptography, a field which first began attracting serious attention when it was realised that a cryptographic task known as `bit commitment,' can be implemented with perfect security under relativistic constraints. This result was highly significant, since it is provably impossible to implement bit commitment with perfect security in a purely classical or purely quantum context, and hence bit commitment is an ideal starting point for probing the power of relativistic quantum cryptography. In this thesis we propose several new relativistic quantum bit commitment protocols which have notable advantages over previously known protocols. We then move to a related task, a generalization of zero-knowledge proving which we refer to as knowledge-concealing evidencing of knowledge of a quantum state; we prove no-go theorems concerning the possibility of implementing this task with perfect security, and then set out a relativistic protocol for the task which is asymptotically secure as the dimension of the state in question becomes large. These results have interesting foundational significance above and beyond their applications in the field of cryptography, providing a new perspective on the connections between knowledge, realism and quantum states.
Bit commitment is a fundamental cryptographic primitive in which Bob wishes to commit a secret bit to Alice. Perfectly secure bit commitment between two mistrustful parties is impossible through asynchronous exchange of quantum information. Perfect security is however possible when Alice and Bob split into several agents exchanging classical and quantum information at times and locations suitably chosen to satisfy specific relativistic constraints. Here we report on an implementation of a bit commitment protocol using quantum communication and special relativity. Our protocol is based on [A. Kent, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 130501 (2012)] and has the advantage that it is practically feasible with arbitrary large separations between the agents in order to maximize the commitment time. By positioning agents in Geneva and Singapore, we obtain a commitment time of 15 ms. A security analysis considering experimental imperfections and finite statistics is presented.
Currently, it is believed in the literature that unconditionally secure bit commitment is impossible in non-relativistic quantum cryptography while only a weaker notion of bit commitment with finite commitment time is achievable in relativistic quantum setting. Moreover, relativistic classical bit commitment protocols allow arbitrary long commitment time but such protocols are not practically feasible; either because of multiple rounds of communication that result in exponential increase in communication complexity or due to asymptotic nature of security argument. The impossibility of practically feasible standard bit commitment leaves an obvious skepticism on the completeness of Hilbert space quantum cryptography and its claims of unconditional security. Contrary to the previously proposed results, we demonstrate here that an information-theoretic standard bit commitment scheme can be devised by using rules of purely non-relativistic quantum mechanics only; neither additional resources from theory of relativity nor multiple rounds of communications are required. The proposed bit commitment scheme can be applied efficiently with existing quantum technologies without long term quantum memory; quantum entanglement is required only for time t+δ where t is the communication time between the committer and receiver while δ << t is the processing time at laboratory.
Quantum physics allows for unconditionally secure communication between parties that trust each other. However, when the parties do not trust each other such as in the bit commitment scenario, quantum physics is not enough to guarantee security unless extra assumptions are made. Unconditionally secure bit commitment only becomes feasible when quantum physics is combined with relativistic causality constraints. Here we experimentally implement a quantum bit commitment protocol with relativistic constraints that offers unconditional security. The commitment is made through quantum measurements in two quantum key distribution systems in which the results are transmitted via free-space optical communication to two agents separated with more than 20 km. The security of the protocol relies on the properties of quantum information and relativity theory. In each run of the experiment, a bit is successfully committed with less than 5.68×10(-2) cheating probability. This demonstrates the experimental feasibility of quantum communication with relativistic constraints.