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arXiv:2010.04441

Mediated semi-quantum key distribution in randomization-based environment

Yen Jie Chen, Tzonelih Hwang, Chia‐Wei Tsai

Published Oct 9, 2020• 1 citation
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Abstract

This paper proposes the first mediated semi-quantum key distribution in randomization-based environment with an untrusted third party(TP) who has the complete quantum capabilities to help two classical users to establish a secure key. The entanglement swapping between the collapsed qubits of Bell states and the Bell states is used to facilitate the design of the RSQKD protocol.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2010.04441

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This paper proposes the first mediated semi-quantum key distribution in randomization-based environment with an untrusted third party(TP) who has the complete quantum capabilities to help two classical users to establish a secure key. The entanglement swapping between the collapsed qubits of Bell states and the Bell states is used to facilitate the design of the RSQKD protocol.
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In this paper, we propose a new efficient mediated semi-quantum key distribution (MSQKD) protocol, facilitating the establishment of a shared secret key between two classical participants with the assistance of an untrusted third party (TP). Unlike existing MSQKD protocols, our approach significantly reduces the quantum requirements for TP, who only needs to prepare and measure qubits in the XXX basis. Meanwhile, the classical participants are limited to preparing and measuring qubits in the ZZZ basis, along with performing Hadamard operations. This reduction in quantum overhead enhances the practicality of our MSQKD protocol without compromising qubit efficiency. Additionally, we demonstrate the security of our protocol against various well-known attacks.
The mediated semi-quantum key distribution (MSQKD) protocol is an important research issue that lets two classical participants share secret keys securely between each other with the help of a third party (TP). However, in the existing MSQKD protocols, there are two improvable issues, namely (1) the classical participants must be equipped with expensive detectors to avoid Trojan horse attacks and (2) the trustworthiness level of TP must be honest. To the best of our knowledge, none of the existing MSQKD protocols can resolve both these issues. Therefore, this study takes Bell states as the quantum resource to propose a MSQKD protocol, in which the classical participants do not need a Trojan horse detector and the TP is dishonest. Furthermore, the proposed protocol is shown to be secure against well-known attacks and the classical participants only need two quantum capabilities. Therefore, in comparison to the existing MSQKD protocols, the proposed protocol is better practical.
Abstract In this paper, we propose an efficient lightweight mediated semi-quantum key distribution (LM-SQKD) protocol, which enables two lightweight participants to securely establish a shared key with the help of an untrusted third party (TP). Compared with existing M-SQKD protocols, our protocol significantly reduces the overall quantum burden and improves the qubit efficiency, where TP only needs to prepare and measure qubits in the X basis and two lightweight participants are just required to execute three unitary operations and reflect qubits. Furthermore, the detailed security analysis verifies that the proposed protocol can against three well-known attacks.
Semi-quantum inspired lightweight protocol is an important research issue in realization of quantum protocols. However, the previous semi-quantum inspired lightweight mediated quantum key distribution (SQIL-MQKD) protocols need to use the Bell states or measure the Bell states. The generation and measurement of Bell states are more difficult and expensive than those of single photons. To solve this problem, a semi-quantum inspired lightweight mediated quantum key distribution with limited resource protocol is proposed. In this protocol, an untrusted third party (TP) only needs to perform the quantum operations related to single photons and the participants only have to perform two quantum operations: (1) reflecting qubits without disturbance (2) performing unitary operations on single photons. In addition, this protocol is showed to be robust under the collective attack.