Sequential Quantum Secret Sharing schemes (QSS) do not use entangled states for secret sharing, rather they rely on sequential operations of the players on a single state which is circulated between the players. In order to check the viability of these schemes under imperfect operations and noise in the channels, we consider one such scheme in detail and show that under moderate conditions it is still possible to extract viable secure shared keys in this scheme. Although we specifically consider only one type of sequential scheme and three different noise models, our method is fairly general to be applied to other QSS schemes and noise models as well.
Sequential Quantum Secret Sharing schemes (QSS) do not use entangled states for secret sharing, rather they rely on sequential operations of the players on a single state which is circulated between the players. In order to check the viability of these schemes under imperfect operations and noise in the channels, we consider one such scheme in detail and show that under moderate conditions it is still possible to extract viable secure shared keys in this scheme. Although we specifically consider only one type of sequential scheme and three different noise models, our method is fairly general to be applied to other QSS schemes and noise models as well.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols between N players, for sharing classical secrets, either use multipartite entangled states or use sequential manipulation of single d-level states only when d is prime (A. Tavakoli et al., arXiv:1501.05582). We propose a sequential scheme which is valid for any value of d. In contrast to A. Tavakoli et al. whose efficiency (number of valid rounds) is d1, the efficiency of our scheme is 21 for any d. This, together with the fact that in the limit $d\ensuremath{\longrightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ the scheme can be implemented by continuous variable optical states, brings the scheme into the domain of present day technology.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is a cryptography technique relying on the transmission and manipulation of quantum states to distribute secret information across multiple participants securely. However, quantum systems are susceptible to various types of noise that can compromise their security and reliability. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the influence of noise on QSS to ensure their effectiveness and practicality in real-world quantum communication. This paper studies the impact of various noisy environments on multi-dimensional QSS. Using quantum fidelity, we examine the influence of four noise models: d-phase-flip(dpf), dit-flip(df), amplitude damping(ad), and depolarizing(d). It has been discovered that the fidelity declines with an increase in the noise parameter. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the efficiency of the QSS protocol differs significantly across distinct noise models.
The need for secrecy and security is essential in communication. Secret sharing is a conventional protocol to distribute a secret message to a group of parties, who cannot access it individually but need to cooperate in order to decode it. While several variants of this protocol have been investigated, including realizations using quantum systems, the security of quantum secret sharing schemes against eavesdroppers and dishonest participants remained unproven. Here we establish an unconditional security proof for continuous variable entanglement-based quantum secret sharing schemes, in the limit of asymptotic keys and for an arbitrary number of players, by utilizing ideas from the recently developed one-sided device-independent approach to quantum key distribution. We demonstrate the practical feasibility of our scheme, which can be implemented by Gaussian states and homodyne measurements, with no need for ideal single-photon sources or quantum memories. Our results establish quantum secret sharing as a viable and practically relevant primitive for quantum communication technologies.
The need for secrecy and security is essential in communication. Secret sharing is a conventional protocol to distribute a secret message to a group of parties, who cannot access it individually but need to cooperate in order to decode it. While several variants of this protocol have been investigated, including realizations using quantum systems, the security of quantum secret sharing schemes still remains unproven almost two decades after their original conception. Here we establish an unconditional security proof for entanglement-based continuous-variable quantum secret sharing schemes, in the limit of asymptotic keys and for an arbitrary number of players. We tackle the problem by resorting to the recently developed one-sided device-independent approach to quantum key distribution. We demonstrate theoretically the feasibility of our scheme, which can be implemented by Gaussian states and homodyne measurements, with no need for ideal single-photon sources or quantum memories. Our results contribute to validating quantum secret sharing as a viable primitive for quantum technologies.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is a cryptographic protocol that utilizes fundamental principles of quantum mechanics to securely distribute and reconstruct secret information among multiple participants. Most existing protocols rely on entangled states (such as Bell and GHZ states), but in practical applications. The preparation of entangled state is constrained by a short quantum coherence time, low state fidelity, etc., which makes it difficult to implement entangled resource-dependent QSS protocols. In this work, a novel practical and verifiable multi-party QSS protocol is proposed based on orthogonal product states, which are easier to prepare than entangled states. During the protocol preparation stage, the secret distributor first converts pre-shared classical secret information into the corresponding orthogonal product states according to the encoding rules, and pre-shares a communication key with participants via quantum key distribution (QKD), which is used to hide the initial quantum sequence information through subsequent particle transformation operations. After preparing the orthogonal product states, the distributor reorganizes the particles by position, extracting particles at the same position from each state to form new sequences, shuffling their order, then applying Hadamard operations using a pre-shared key, inserting decoy particles, and sending the sequences to the participants. After receiving it, participants conduct eavesdropping detection, use the same key for the inverse transformations, retain one particle from each sequence, and sequentially pass the remaining particles until the last participant receives a complete set, triggering state verification with the arbiter distributor. If the verification is successful, the particles will be returned to the first participant and the return stage will follow the same procedure. Only after both the transmission and return stage verifications have passed, will the distributor reveal the initial particle positions, allowing participants to collaboratively reconstruct the secret. In the protocol, the secret distributor acts as an arbitrator to verify the particle state information together with participants at designated points (the end of the transmission stage and the end of the return stage) in order to determine whether the particle-state information is error-free during transmission. If the verification fails at either stage, the protocol will be terminated immediately. Meanwhile, considering that the number of participants may change during the execution of the protocol, a dynamic scheme for personnel changes is designed to ensure the flexibility of the protocol. Through the analysis of possible internal and external attacks, It can be proven that our protocol can effectively resist the existing common attack. Using Qiskit simulation experiments, the core quantum procedures of the protocol can be successfully modeled. The experimental results provide strong computational validation of the theoretical feasibility of the protocol.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) enables a dealer to securely distribute keys to multiple players. Device-independent (DI) QSS can resist all possible attacks from practical imperfect devices and provide QSS the highest level of security in theory. However, DI QSS requires high-performance devices, especially for low-noise channels, which is a big challenge to demonstrate experimentally. We propose a DI QSS protocol with the advanced random key generation basis strategy, which combines the random key generation basis with the noise preprocessing and postselection strategies. We develop the methods to numerically simulate the key generation rate in an acceptable time. Our DI QSS protocol has some advantages. First, it can increase the noise tolerance threshold from an initial 7.147% to 9.231% (29.16% growth) and reduce the global detection efficiency threshold from 96.32% to 93.41%. The maximal distance between any two users increases to 1.43 km, which is about 5.5 times the initial value. Second, by randomly selecting two basis combinations to generate the key, our DI QSS protocol can reduce the entanglement resource consumption. Our protocol has potential for the experimental demonstration of DI QSS and application in the future.