Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2506.03549 · npj Quantum Information

Efficient multi-basis quantum position verification secure against generalized adversaries

Wen Yu Kon, Ignatius William Primaatmaja, Kaushik Chakraborty, Charles Ci Wen Lim

Published Oct 31, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Quantum position verification (QPV) enables multiple verifiers to certify a prover’s location using quantum communication and physical assumptions. With experimental demonstrations of QPV becoming increasingly feasible, enhancing the practicality and security of QPV protocols is more important than ever. In this work, we make three key contributions toward this goal. First, we introduce a robust QPV protocol in which the verifier’s state preparation is independent of channel loss, improving reliability in real-world conditions. Second, we refine existing security analysis techniques to bolster protocol resilience against experimental imperfections. Third, we identify and address some implicit assumptions present in existing security analyses, providing a framework to eliminate such assumptions. Additionally, as an example of QPV application beyond location verification, we illustrate how QPV can be leveraged for authenticating classical communication in quantum key distribution.

DOI
10.1038/s41534-026-01325-9

Related papers

Position-based quantum cryptography over untrusted networks

Muhammad Nadeem

In this article, we propose quantum position verification (QPV) schemes where all the channels are untrusted except the position of the prover and distant reference stations of verifiers. We review and analyze the existing QPV schemes containing some pre-shared data between the prover and verifiers. Most of these schemes are based on non-cryptographic assumptions, i.e. quantum/classical channels between the verifiers are secure. It seems impractical in an environment fully controlled by adversaries and would lead to security compromise in practical implementations. However, our proposed formula for QPV is more robust, secure and according to the standard assumptions of cryptography. Furthermore, once the position of the prover is verified, our schemes establish secret keys in parallel and can be used for authentication and secret communication between the prover and verifiers.

arXiv:1403.5925•Laser Physics•Jul 15, 2014•12 citations

Position-based quantum cryptography: from theory towards practice

Rene Allerstorfer

This thesis deals with position-based quantum cryptography (PBQC), a type of quantum cryptography. More concretely, we focus on the design and study of quantum position verification (QPV) protocols, which act as a building block for PBQC. We prioritise the development of QPV protocols that are loss-tolerant, error-robust, and feasible with current or near-future technology, concentrating on photon-based protocols and linear-optical equipment. We also theoretically study different attack settings on QPV in the context of state discrimination, dealing with the interplay between non-locality and interaction. We introduce a new QPV protocol based on the SWAP test and Hong-Ou-Mandel interference and study it in detail regarding attacks and practical feasibility. We further provide a solution to a major practical issue of QPV -- signal loss. A minor modification of the standard structure of QPV, namely introducing a small time delay and a commitment to play from the honest prover, allows us to provably make the transmission loss between the verifiers and the honest party irrelevant for security for a class of QPV protocols. Moreover, we generalise and study QPV protocols in the continuous-variable setting. Exploring theoretical aspects of QPV attacks, we focus on the difference between quantum and classical communication. We show new bounds on existing protocols, construct protocols that can be attacked with quantum communication but not locally, show a separation between quantum and classical communication attacks on QPV, and derive a necessary condition on the attack error based on the structure of the QPV input ensemble.

•Jan 1, 2024•0 citations

Arbitrarily Loss-Tolerant Quantum Position Verification in a Single Execution

Llorenç Escolà-Farràs, Boris Škorić, Florian Speelman

Quantum position verification (QPV) aims to certify the location of an untrusted prover, but faces two major obstacles: fundamentally, entanglement-based attacks and, experimentally, photon loss. A commitment-based modification introduced in Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 260801 addresses both in sequentially repeated protocols. Its security analysis, however, relies on the sequential structure and does not extend to parallel repetition. We use a different proof approach to establish security of the commitment modification for a parallel BB84-based QPV protocol. Against bounded-entanglement adversaries, the acceptance probability decays exponentially in the minimum number $k$ of successfully committed qubits. The protocol tolerates arbitrary transmission loss and noise rates up to 3.7%, while allowing arbitrarily slow quantum communication. This yields a fully loss-tolerant, single-execution QPV protocol secure against bounded-entanglement attacks, removing transmission loss as a fundamental limitation on verification distance. We also revisit sequential repetition, correcting the treatment of conditioning on commitment and replacing the earlier conditional guarantee with an unconditional security bound, without the finite-size correction to the correctness gap. The resulting bound provides improved quantitative security parameters for experimental implementations.

quant-pharXiv:2606.25037•Jun 25, 2026•0 citations

Practically secure quantum position verification

Siddhartha Das, George Siopsis

Abstract We discuss quantum position verification (QPV) protocols in which the verifiers create and send single-qubit states to the prover. QPV protocols using single-qubit states are known to be insecure against adversaries that share a small number of entangled qubits. We introduce QPV protocols that are practically secure: they only require single-qubit states from each of the verifiers, yet their security is broken if the adversaries sharing an impractically large number of entangled qubits employ teleportation-based attacks. These protocols are a modification of known QPV protocols in which we include a classical random oracle without altering the amount of quantum resources needed by the verifiers. We present a cheating strategy that requires a number of entangled qubits shared among the adversaries that grows exponentially with the size of the classical input of the random oracle.

arXiv:1711.03392•New Journal of Physics•Jun 1, 2021•7 citations

Making Existing Quantum Position Verification Protocols Secure Against Arbitrary Transmission Loss

Rene Allerstorfer, Andreas Blühm, Harry Buhrman +4 more

Signal loss threatens the security of quantum cryptography, especially in quantum position verification (QPV) protocols, where even small losses can compromise security. This Letter modifies traditional QPV to make high transmission loss between verifiers and the prover irrelevant for a class of protocols, including a practically interesting one based on BB84 states (QPV_{BB84}^{f}). Using photon presence detection and a small time delay, as well as a commitment before proceeding, the protocol's relevant loss rate is reduced to only that of the prover's lab, and the modified protocol has essentially the same security guarantees as the original one. The adapted protocol c-QPV_{BB84}^{f} thus offers strong security guarantees and feasibility over longer distances. We also discuss the practical implementation of the protocol and parameter estimates.

arXiv:2312.12614•Physical Review Letters•Nov 13, 2025•5 citations

Loss-Tolerant Quantum Position Verification for Metropolitan Area Networks

Wen Yu Kon, Niccolò Bigagli, Andrew Conrad +13 more

A spacetime seal, a cryptographic guarantee that a digital event has occurred at an approved location and time, can augment a digital signature with location attestation for legal, financial, and regulatory use cases. In adversarial settings any purely classical realization of such a seal can be spoofed. Quantum position verification (QPV) offers a physics-based solution, exploiting the no-cloning theorem and the no-signaling principle to certify a party's spacetime coordinates. While the feasibility of QPV has been recently shown via entanglement- and coherent light-based protocols, achieving loss tolerance for these schemes substantially increases implementation complexity at metropolitan scales. Here, we introduce and experimentally demonstrate a loss-tolerant QPV (LT-QPV) protocol whose security is independent of channel loss. We prove finite-size security against quantum polynomial-time entangled adversaries in the quantum random oracle model instantiated with cryptographically secure hash functions. Implemented entirely with commercial off-the-shelf components, our system certifies position within 22 minutes of net data collection time against a restricted adversary, with a clear path to real-time certification (<1s) with upgraded hardware. Our architecture, requiring only a single quantum verifier node alongside classical infrastructure, is naturally compatible with metropolitan-area quantum networks, establishing the foundations for scalable, physics-backed spacetime certification as a deployable service.

quant-pharXiv:2609.23234•Sep 22, 2026•0 citations
Abstract Quantum position verification (QPV) enables multiple verifiers to certify a prover’s location using quantum communication and physical assumptions. With experimental demonstrations of QPV becoming increasingly feasible, enhancing the practicality and security of QPV protocols is more important than ever. In this work, we make three key contributions toward this goal. First, we introduce a robust QPV protocol in which the verifier’s state preparation is independent of channel loss, improving reliability in real-world conditions. Second, we refine existing security analysis techniques to bolster protocol resilience against experimental imperfections. Third, we identify and address some implicit assumptions present in existing security analyses, providing a framework to eliminate such assumptions. Additionally, as an example of QPV application beyond location verification, we illustrate how QPV can be leveraged for authenticating classical communication in quantum key distribution.
In this article, we propose quantum position verification (QPV) schemes where all the channels are untrusted except the position of the prover and distant reference stations of verifiers. We review and analyze the existing QPV schemes containing some pre-shared data between the prover and verifiers. Most of these schemes are based on non-cryptographic assumptions, i.e. quantum/classical channels between the verifiers are secure. It seems impractical in an environment fully controlled by adversaries and would lead to security compromise in practical implementations. However, our proposed formula for QPV is more robust, secure and according to the standard assumptions of cryptography. Furthermore, once the position of the prover is verified, our schemes establish secret keys in parallel and can be used for authentication and secret communication between the prover and verifiers.
This thesis deals with position-based quantum cryptography (PBQC), a type of quantum cryptography. More concretely, we focus on the design and study of quantum position verification (QPV) protocols, which act as a building block for PBQC. We prioritise the development of QPV protocols that are loss-tolerant, error-robust, and feasible with current or near-future technology, concentrating on photon-based protocols and linear-optical equipment. We also theoretically study different attack settings on QPV in the context of state discrimination, dealing with the interplay between non-locality and interaction. We introduce a new QPV protocol based on the SWAP test and Hong-Ou-Mandel interference and study it in detail regarding attacks and practical feasibility. We further provide a solution to a major practical issue of QPV -- signal loss. A minor modification of the standard structure of QPV, namely introducing a small time delay and a commitment to play from the honest prover, allows us to provably make the transmission loss between the verifiers and the honest party irrelevant for security for a class of QPV protocols. Moreover, we generalise and study QPV protocols in the continuous-variable setting. Exploring theoretical aspects of QPV attacks, we focus on the difference between quantum and classical communication. We show new bounds on existing protocols, construct protocols that can be attacked with quantum communication but not locally, show a separation between quantum and classical communication attacks on QPV, and derive a necessary condition on the attack error based on the structure of the QPV input ensemble.
Quantum position verification (QPV) aims to certify the location of an untrusted prover, but faces two major obstacles: fundamentally, entanglement-based attacks and, experimentally, photon loss. A commitment-based modification introduced in Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 260801 addresses both in sequentially repeated protocols. Its security analysis, however, relies on the sequential structure and does not extend to parallel repetition. We use a different proof approach to establish security of the commitment modification for a parallel BB84-based QPV protocol. Against bounded-entanglement adversaries, the acceptance probability decays exponentially in the minimum number kkk of successfully committed qubits. The protocol tolerates arbitrary transmission loss and noise rates up to 3.7%, while allowing arbitrarily slow quantum communication. This yields a fully loss-tolerant, single-execution QPV protocol secure against bounded-entanglement attacks, removing transmission loss as a fundamental limitation on verification distance. We also revisit sequential repetition, correcting the treatment of conditioning on commitment and replacing the earlier conditional guarantee with an unconditional security bound, without the finite-size correction to the correctness gap. The resulting bound provides improved quantitative security parameters for experimental implementations.
Abstract We discuss quantum position verification (QPV) protocols in which the verifiers create and send single-qubit states to the prover. QPV protocols using single-qubit states are known to be insecure against adversaries that share a small number of entangled qubits. We introduce QPV protocols that are practically secure: they only require single-qubit states from each of the verifiers, yet their security is broken if the adversaries sharing an impractically large number of entangled qubits employ teleportation-based attacks. These protocols are a modification of known QPV protocols in which we include a classical random oracle without altering the amount of quantum resources needed by the verifiers. We present a cheating strategy that requires a number of entangled qubits shared among the adversaries that grows exponentially with the size of the classical input of the random oracle.
Signal loss threatens the security of quantum cryptography, especially in quantum position verification (QPV) protocols, where even small losses can compromise security. This Letter modifies traditional QPV to make high transmission loss between verifiers and the prover irrelevant for a class of protocols, including a practically interesting one based on BB84 states (QPV_{BB84}^{f}). Using photon presence detection and a small time delay, as well as a commitment before proceeding, the protocol's relevant loss rate is reduced to only that of the prover's lab, and the modified protocol has essentially the same security guarantees as the original one. The adapted protocol c-QPV_{BB84}^{f} thus offers strong security guarantees and feasibility over longer distances. We also discuss the practical implementation of the protocol and parameter estimates.
A spacetime seal, a cryptographic guarantee that a digital event has occurred at an approved location and time, can augment a digital signature with location attestation for legal, financial, and regulatory use cases. In adversarial settings any purely classical realization of such a seal can be spoofed. Quantum position verification (QPV) offers a physics-based solution, exploiting the no-cloning theorem and the no-signaling principle to certify a party's spacetime coordinates. While the feasibility of QPV has been recently shown via entanglement- and coherent light-based protocols, achieving loss tolerance for these schemes substantially increases implementation complexity at metropolitan scales. Here, we introduce and experimentally demonstrate a loss-tolerant QPV (LT-QPV) protocol whose security is independent of channel loss. We prove finite-size security against quantum polynomial-time entangled adversaries in the quantum random oracle model instantiated with cryptographically secure hash functions. Implemented entirely with commercial off-the-shelf components, our system certifies position within 22 minutes of net data collection time against a restricted adversary, with a clear path to real-time certification (<1s) with upgraded hardware. Our architecture, requiring only a single quantum verifier node alongside classical infrastructure, is naturally compatible with metropolitan-area quantum networks, establishing the foundations for scalable, physics-backed spacetime certification as a deployable service.