Unconditional security through quantum uncertainty

Stephanie Wehner

H. Inamori, N. Lütkenhaus, D. Mayers

I. Peterson

Masato Koashi

An approach to the unconditional security of quantum key distribution protocols is presented, which is based on the uncertainty principle. The approach applies to every case that has been treated via the argument by Shor and Preskill, but it is not necessary to find quantum error correcting codes. It can also treat the cases with uncharacterized apparatuses. The proof can be applied to cases where the secret key rate is larger than the distillable entanglement.

Alin-Bogdan Popa, Bogdan-Călin Ciobanu, Pantelimon George Popescu

With the looming threat of quantum computers capable of breaking classical encryption and the uncertainty regarding the security of post-quantum encryption algorithms, some highly sensitive applications aim for the highest level of security in information transfer: unconditional security. In this work we present an architecture and a practical implementation of a user-friendly unconditionally secure file transfer client based on quantum key distribution and one time pad cipher. We test the implementation on the live QKD research infrastructure within POLITEHNICA Bucharest, thus proving the approach is feasible for real information transfer use-cases.