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International Symposium on Information Theory and its Applications

On the security of the quantum key distribution using the Mean King Problem

M. Yoshida, Takayuki Miyadera, Hideki Imai

Published Oct 1, 2010• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It is anticipated that quantum key distribution enable us to share a secret key while guaranteeing unconditionally security. In this paper, we discuss the quantum key distribution using the Mean King Problem which was proposed by J. Bub in 2001. While this two-way quantum protocol is essentially different from the other one-way protocols like the BB84, it has been shown that Eve cannot gain any information without being detected even in this protocol. Assuming two attack scenarios in this protocol, we derive two trade-off inequalities showing that the larger Eve's information gain is, the higher the detectability becomes. These quantitative inequalities enables the legitimate users to estimate Eve's information gain.

DOI
10.1109/isita.2010.5649556

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It is anticipated that quantum key distribution enable us to share a secret key while guaranteeing unconditionally security. In this paper, we discuss the quantum key distribution using the Mean King Problem which was proposed by J. Bub in 2001. While this two-way quantum protocol is essentially different from the other one-way protocols like the BB84, it has been shown that Eve cannot gain any information without being detected even in this protocol. Assuming two attack scenarios in this protocol, we derive two trade-off inequalities showing that the larger Eve's information gain is, the higher the detectability becomes. These quantitative inequalities enables the legitimate users to estimate Eve's information gain.
In 2001, Jefferey Bub proposed a quantum key distribution protocol using the Mean King problem. In the protocol, King chooses one of the observables σ x or σ z , while Alice is required to measure an observable that solves the Mean King problem for three observables σ x , σ y and σ z . The observable employed by Alice is thus rather complicated. In this paper, we give other simple solutions of the Mean King problem for two observables and examine the quantum key distribution protocols using them. Our result shows that not all the solutions of the Mean King problem are available to construct a secure protocol. In addition, we consider a protocol that is tolerant with three attack scenarios and derive a trade-off inequality between Eve's information gain and error probability observed by the legitimate users.
We introduce a quantum key distribution protocol using mean multi-kings' problem. Using this protocol, a sender can share a bit sequence as a secret key with receivers. We consider a relation between information gain by an eavesdropper and disturbance contained in legitimate users' information. In BB84 protocol, such relation is known as the so-called information disturbance theorem. We focus on a setting that the sender and two receivers try to share bit sequences and the eavesdropper tries to extract information by interacting legitimate users' systems and an ancilla system. We derive trade-off inequalities between distinguishability of quantum states corresponding to the bit sequence for the eavesdropper and error probability of the bit sequence shared with the legitimate users. Our inequalities show that eavesdropper's extracting information regarding the secret keys inevitably induces disturbing the states and increasing the error probability.
Quantum cryptography, or, more precisely, quantum key distribution (QKD) allows two distant parties, Alice and Bob, to expand a previously shared secret key by sending quantum states through a quantum channel. The goal here is for Alice and Bob to communicate securely in the presence of an eavesdropper, Eve. The most well-known QKD protocol is the Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) protocol, which has been proved unconditionally secure against any attacks allowed by quantum mechanics. The main advantage of QKD over conventional cryptography is its absolute security. Thus, it is imperative to evaluate the security and performance of QKD protocols and realistic QKD systems. In this thesis, we study the security and performance aspects of QKD in four parts. In the first part, we study the Scarani-Acin-Ribordy-Gisin 2004 (SARG04) protocol. This protocol differs from the BB84 protocol only in the classical post-processing step and uses the same four quantum states as the BB84 protocol. We compared these two protocols and showed that in typical situations, the classical post-processing software for BB84 should be used in order to have a higher performance. In the second part, we prove the security of a three-state protocol. This protocol is similar to the BB84 protocol in that they share the same three qubit states. In the third part, we consider a practical Trojan horse attack on practical QKD systems implementing the BB84 protocol. The attack works by taking advantage of the finite response time of practical phase modulators to remap the states sent out by the legitimate user, Alice. We showed that if Alice and Bob are unaware of our attack, the final key shared between them can be compromised in some situations. In the fourth part, we consider another type of Trojan horse attack, which is based on mismatch between detection efficiencies of detectors. Practical detectors in QKD systems usually do not have identical efficiencies and an eavesdropper Eve may be able to exploit this efficiency mismatch to steal information about the final secret key. We analyze the security of the attack and show that it is possible for Eve to acquire some information on the final secret key if Alice and Bob are unaware of this attack.
Quantum cryptography uses quantum mechanics to guarantee secure communication. BB84 is a widely used quantum key distribution that provides a way for two parties, a sender, Alice, and a receiver, Bob, to share an unconditionally secure key in the presence of an eavesdropper, Eve. Three different criteria can be assumed to study the BB84 protocol. They are the efficiency of the protocol, the probability that Eve remains undetected, and the amount of knowledge Eve has about Alice's bit sequence. In a previous approach, we only considered the probability that Eve remains undetected. We viewed this protocol as a three player static game in which Alice and Bob were two cooperative players and Eve was a competitive one. In our game model, Alice's and Bob's objective was to maximize the probability of detecting Eve, while Eve's objective was to minimize this probability. In this paper, our previous effort is extended and we also consider the other two criteria, i.e. the efficiency of the protocol and the amount of knowledge Eve has about Alice's bit sequence. Using these models, we show how game theory can be used to find the strategies for Alice, Bob and Eve.
In this paper, we introduce the extended mean king's problem and its solutions. Also, we show a quantum key distribution (QKD) using the extended mean king's problem. By using the quantum key distribution, a sender can share a secret key with each of receivers. Besides, we consider the tolerance to an eavesdropper who makes intercept-resend attacks. As a result, in the case of two receivers, we indicate that the quantum key distribution is robust against the intercept-resend attacks by showing that the error occurs between the secret keys of a sender and receivers.