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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

An approach to experimental photonic quantum digital signatures in fiber

Ross J. Donaldson, Robert John Collins, Vedran Dunjko, Partick J. Clarke, Erika Andersson, John Jeffers, Gerald S. Buller

Published Oct 29, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

As society becomes more reliant on electronic communication and transactions, ensuring the security of these interactions becomes more important. Digital signatures are a widely used form of cryptography which allows parties to certify the origins of their communications, meaning that one party, a sender, can send information to other parties in such a way that messages cannot be forged. In addition, messages are transferrable, meaning that a recipient who accepts a message as genuine can be sure that if it is forwarded to another recipient, it will again be accepted as genuine. The classical digital signature schemes currently employed typically rely on computational complexity for security. Quantum digital signatures offer the potential for increased security. In our system, quantum signature states are passed through a network of polarization maintaining fiber interferometers (a multiport) to ensure that recipients will not disagree on the validity of a message. These signatures are encoded in the phase of photonic coherent states and the choice of photon number, signature length and number of possible phase states affects the level of security possible by this approach. We will give a brief introduction into quantum digital signatures and present results from our experimental demonstration system.

DOI
10.1117/12.2028720

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As society becomes more reliant on electronic communication and transactions, ensuring the security of these interactions becomes more important. Digital signatures are a widely used form of cryptography which allows parties to certify the origins of their communications, meaning that one party, a sender, can send information to other parties in such a way that messages cannot be forged. In addition, messages are transferrable, meaning that a recipient who accepts a message as genuine can be sure that if it is forwarded to another recipient, it will again be accepted as genuine. The classical digital signature schemes currently employed typically rely on computational complexity for security. Quantum digital signatures offer the potential for increased security. In our system, quantum signature states are passed through a network of polarization maintaining fiber interferometers (a multiport) to ensure that recipients will not disagree on the validity of a message. These signatures are encoded in the phase of photonic coherent states and the choice of photon number, signature length and number of possible phase states affects the level of security possible by this approach. We will give a brief introduction into quantum digital signatures and present results from our experimental demonstration system.
Digital signatures are frequently used in data transfer to prevent impersonation, repudiation and message tampering. Currently used classical digital signature schemes rely on public key encryption techniques, where the complexity of so-called ‘one-way’ mathematical functions is used to provide security over sufficiently long timescales. No mathematical proofs are known for the long-term security of such techniques. Quantum digital signatures offer a means of sending a message, which cannot be forged or repudiated, with security verified by information-theoretical limits and quantum mechanics. Here we demonstrate an experimental system, which distributes quantum signatures from one sender to two receivers and enables message sending ensured against forging and repudiation. Additionally, we analyse the security of the system in some typical scenarios. Our system is based on the interference of phase-encoded coherent states of light and our implementation utilizes polarization-maintaining optical fibre and photons with a wavelength of 850 nm. Quantum digital signatures exploit quantum mechanics to provide verification of messages at the limits of information theory. Clarkeet al.demonstrate a photonic system that provides quantum digital signatures for messages sent to two receivers and is secure against forgery and repudiation.
Digital signature schemes are often used in interconnected computer networks to verify the origin and authenticity of messages. Current classical digital signature schemes based on so-called “one-way functions” rely on computational complexity to provide security over sufficiently long timescales. However, there are currently no mathematical proofs that such functions will always be computationally complex. Quantum digital signatures offers a means of confirming both origin and authenticity of a message with security verified by information theoretical limits. The message cannot be forged or repudiated. We have constructed, tested and analyzed the security of what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first example of an experimental quantum digital signature system.
Classical digital signatures are commonly used in e-mail, electronic financial transactions and other forms of electronic communications to ensure that messages have not been tampered with in transit, and that messages are transferrable. The security of commonly used classical digital signature schemes relies on the computational difficulty of inverting certain mathematical functions. However, at present, there are no such one-way functions which have been proven to be hard to invert. With enough computational resources certain implementations of classical public key cryptosystems can be, and have been, broken with current technology. It is nevertheless possible to construct information-theoretically secure signature schemes, including quantum digital signature schemes. Quantum signature schemes can be made information theoretically secure based on the laws of quantum mechanics, while classical comparable protocols require additional resources such as secret communication and a trusted authority. Early demonstrations of quantum digital signatures required quantum memory, rendering them impractical at present. Our present implementation is based on a protocol that does not require quantum memory. It also uses the new technique of unambiguous quantum state elimination, Here we report experimental results for a test-bed system, recorded with a variety of different operating parameters, along with a discussion of aspects of the system security.
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The security of electronic communications is a topic that has gained noteworthy public interest in recent years. As a result, there is an increasing public recognition of the existence and importance of mathematically based approaches to digital security. Many of these implement digital signatures to ensure that a malicious party has not tampered with the message in transit, that a legitimate receiver can validate the identity of the signer and that messages are transferable. The security of most digital signature schemes relies on the assumed computational difficulty of solving certain mathematical problems. However, reports in the media have shown that certain implementations of such signature schemes are vulnerable to algorithmic breakthroughs and emerging quantum processing technologies. Indeed, even without quantum processors, the possibility remains that classical algorithmic breakthroughs will render these schemes insecure. There is ongoing research into information-theoretically secure signature schemes, where the security is guaranteed against an attacker with arbitrary computational resources. One such approach is quantum digital signatures. Quantum signature schemes can be made information-theoretically secure based on the laws of quantum mechanics while comparable classical protocols require additional resources such as anonymous broadcast and/or a trusted authority. Previously, most early demonstrations of quantum digital signatures required dedicated single-purpose hardware and operated over restricted ranges in a laboratory environment. Here, for the first time, we present a demonstration of quantum digital signatures conducted over several kilometers of installed optical fiber. The system reported here operates at a higher signature generation rate than previous fiber systems.
We present a quantum digital signature scheme whose security is based on fundamental principles of quantum physics. It allows a sender (Alice) to sign a message in such a way that the signature can be validated by a number of different people, and all will agree either that the message came from Alice or that it has been tampered with. To accomplish this task, each recipient of the message must have a copy of Alice's "public key," which is a set of quantum states whose exact identity is known only to Alice. Quantum public keys are more difficult to deal with than classical public keys: for instance, only a limited number of copies can be in circulation, or the scheme becomes insecure. However, in exchange for this price, we achieve unconditionally secure digital signatures. Sending an m-bit message uses up O(m) quantum bits for each recipient of the public key. We briefly discuss how to securely distribute quantum public keys, and show the signature scheme is absolutely secure using one method of key distribution. The protocol provides a model for importing the ideas of classical public key cryptography into the quantum world.