Due to imperfection in quantum key distribution (QKD) an uncorrected secret key transmitted via quantum channel exists at the receiver side. This paper presents an alternative method to recover those quantum key by using BCH codes - a class of error control coding (ECC). Application of BCH codes to source coding with side information is described for quantum key reconciliation. Unlikely to many previous protocols, the proposed scheme aims to reduce public communication with acceptable quantum bit error rate and a number of disclosed bits; therefore, it is suitable to applications of high speed QKD.
Due to imperfection in quantum key distribution (QKD) an uncorrected secret key transmitted via quantum channel exists at the receiver side. This paper presents an alternative method to recover those quantum key by using BCH codes - a class of error control coding (ECC). Application of BCH codes to source coding with side information is described for quantum key reconciliation. Unlikely to many previous protocols, the proposed scheme aims to reduce public communication with acceptable quantum bit error rate and a number of disclosed bits; therefore, it is suitable to applications of high speed QKD.
A quantum key distribution protocol(QKD), known as BB84, was developed in 1984 by Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard. The protocol works in two phases which are quantum state transmission and conventional post processing. In the first phase of BB84, raw key elements are distributed between two legitimate users by sending encoded photons through quantum channel whilst in the second phase, a common secret-key is obtained from correlated raw key elements by exchanging messages through a public channel e.g.; network or internet. The secret-key so obtained is used for cryptography purpose. Reconciliation is a compulsory part of post processing and hence of quantum key distribution protocol. The performance of a reconciliation protocol depends on the generation rate of common secret-key, number of bits disclosed and the error probability in common secrete-key. These characteristics of a protocol can be achieved by using a less interactive reconciliation protocol which can handle a higher initial quantum bit error rate (QBER). In this paper, we use a simple Bose, Chaudhuri, Hocquenghem (BCH) error correction algorithm with simplified syndrome table to achieve an efficient reconciliation protocol which can handle a higher quantum bit error rate and outputs a common key with zero error probability. The proposed protocol efficient in removing errors such that it can remove all errors even if QBER is 60%. Assuming the post processing channel is an authenticated binary symmetric channel (BSC).
The quantum key reconciliation is an essential step of QKD protocol. Its main objective is to correct the transmission error after the distribution of quantum objects over a quantum channel, where two legitimate parties use a classical interactive communication for agreeing on their common key. This paper presents an alternative quantum key reconciliation method based on the Slepian-Wolf coding scheme with the chosen optimal set of BCH code rates as close to the Slepian-Wolf bound. In the proposed scheme, the BCH decoder is modified by adding one-bit feedback based on syndrome decoding to detect uncorrectable errors whenever the decoding process fails. The performance evaluation of this proposed scheme can achieve the reconciliation efficiency and reduce the cost of interactive communication via an error-free public channel comparable to the well-known reconciliation protocols. It is then suitable to apply for higher-speed discrete-variable QKD applications.
Quantum cryptography specifically called Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) provides acceptable levels of secure communications by utilising established laws of quantum mechanics. QKD protocol distributes a raw key through quantum channel between two cryptography users and then it removes errors occurred during communication from the distributed key by passing messages via public channel. Most popular error reconciliation protocols such as Binary, Cascade and Winnow are used to remove errors in a secure way. Among these three protocols, Buttler’s Winnow has the advantage of less communication complexity, however it is less effective at high error rates in a key and has the disadvantage of introducing errors during error reconciliation, and hence, causes reduction in reconciled key size and/or leave errors in the reconciled key. Winnow can handle quantum bit error rates a maximum up to 18 percent. However, after 13 percent error rate, Winnow becomes highly interactive and it may fail to reconcile the key. The deficiencies of high interactivity, reduction in reconciled key size, leaving errors in the reconciled key and failure of Winnow can be removed by enhancing the error reconciliation protocol by employing modified Bose, Chaudhuri, Hocquenghem (BCH) channel coding techniques. The enhanced BCH encoding algorithm is designed to handle a key at higher quantum bit error rates. BCH error detection and correction algorithms are enhanced to minimise the error percentage in the reconciled key. The modified block interleaver is introduced in the reconciliation protocol to obtain a long-size reconciled key with minimum iterations. The enhanced error reconciliation protocol can reconcile the key up to 50 percent initial bit error rate and reduces public channel communications. Finally, a long sized identical shared secret key with minimal error rate approaching zero is obtained within two iterations. The attained key can be used with secret key cipher to encrypt and decrypt information.
Objective of this paper is the study of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols based on classical error-correcting codes. The Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) systems and related protocols, in particular conditions, can use the classic channel coding techniques, instead of quantum error-correcting codes, both for correcting errors that occurred during the exchange of a cryptographic key between two authorized users, and to allow privacy amplification, in order to make completely vain a possible intruder attempt. The secret key is transmitted over a quantum, and thus safe, channel, characterized by very low transmission rates and high error rates. This channel is safe for the properties of a quantum system, where each measurement on the system perturbs the system itself, allowing the authorized users to “feel” if there is any intruder listening. Moreover, as shown by accurate experimental studies, the communication channel used for quantum key exchange is not able to reach high levels of reliability (the Quantum Bit Error Rate (QBER) takes values between 0.05 and 0.11), both because of the inherent characteristics of the system, and of the presence of a possible attacker. Thus, in order to obtain acceptable residual error rates, it is necessary to use a parallel classical and public channel, conversely characterized by high transmission rates and low error rates, on which to transmit only the redundancy bits of systematic channel codes with performance possibly close to the capacity limit.
Quantum cryptography is essentially the quantum key distribution (QKD). In the context of QKD, one from two partners (Alice) generates and sends a sequence of qubits through a private quantum channel to another partner (Bob) and Bob receives the sequence and measures the state of each qubit. After the quantum transmission stage, Alice and Bob have almost identical qubit sequences. The erros are due to physical imperfections in the channel and presence of an eavesdropper. The next stage in QKD is key reconciliation (i.e. finding and correcting discrepancies between Alice's string and that of Bob). This reconciliation can be done by public discussion. Let us suppose there is a secret quantum channel between Alice and Bob through which Alice transmits a n-bit string A=(A1, A2,...,An)ε{0,1}n. Then Bob receives a n-bit string B=(B1, B2,...,Bn)ε{0,1)n. The string B differs from A due to the presence of noise and eavesdropper in the channel. One can estimate the bit error probability in the channel. For example, Bob can choose a random subset from his string and send it to Alice in public. Then Alice compares the received string with her corresponding subset and calculates the total number of protocol steps. The cascade scheme uses the interaction over the public channel to correct the secret strings by dividing them into the blocks of a fixed length. The length is determined from the bit error probability. A simple interactive routine is applied in each of these blocks. An error found in some block results in some action with other blocks. It is important to optimize the error-finding routines in standalone blocks as well as to organize the effective constrution of blocks with the object of protocol benchmark, information leakage and number of interactions between partners.
A delayed error-correction (EC) reconciliation protocol for quantum key distribution (QKD) is proposed in the paper, where the error correction operation is operated after the messages have been transmitted. There are two advantages of the proposed protocol. First, it is possible for the two nodes without a direct quantum link to share secret keys, when the two nodes are separately connected to a common trusted relay in the QKD network. Besides, the reconciliation protocol with the delayed EC also simplifies the whole reconciliation process. It corrects both errors caused by communications during QKD process and that inherent in message bits. The key generation rate of the delayed EC protocol is presented. Finally, the bit error rate of the proposed protocol is analyzed when using polar codes as the error correction codes. The results show that the performance of the delayed EC reconciliation protocol with polar codes were better than those using low-density parity check code.