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Scientific Reports

Efficient multiparty quantum key agreement with collective detection

Wei Huang, Qi Su, Bin Liu, He Yuan-Hang, Fan Fan, Bingjie Xu

Published Nov 6, 2017• 33 citations
Publisher

Abstract

As a burgeoning branch of quantum cryptography, quantum key agreement is a kind of key establishing processes where the security and fairness of the established common key should be guaranteed simultaneously. However, the difficulty on designing a qualified quantum key agreement protocol increases significantly with the increase of the number of the involved participants. Thus far, only few of the existing multiparty quantum key agreement (MQKA) protocols can really achieve security and fairness. Nevertheless, these qualified MQKA protocols are either too inefficient or too impractical. In this paper, an MQKA protocol is proposed with single photons in travelling mode. Since only one eavesdropping detection is needed in the proposed protocol, the qubit efficiency and measurement efficiency of it are higher than those of the existing ones in theory. Compared with the protocols which make use of the entangled states or multi-particle measurements, the proposed protocol is more feasible with the current technologies. Security and fairness analysis shows that the proposed protocol is not only immune to the attacks from external eavesdroppers, but also free from the attacks from internal betrayers.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-017-15227-6

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As a burgeoning branch of quantum cryptography, quantum key agreement is a kind of key establishing processes where the security and fairness of the established common key should be guaranteed simultaneously. However, the difficulty on designing a qualified quantum key agreement protocol increases significantly with the increase of the number of the involved participants. Thus far, only few of the existing multiparty quantum key agreement (MQKA) protocols can really achieve security and fairness. Nevertheless, these qualified MQKA protocols are either too inefficient or too impractical. In this paper, an MQKA protocol is proposed with single photons in travelling mode. Since only one eavesdropping detection is needed in the proposed protocol, the qubit efficiency and measurement efficiency of it are higher than those of the existing ones in theory. Compared with the protocols which make use of the entangled states or multi-particle measurements, the proposed protocol is more feasible with the current technologies. Security and fairness analysis shows that the proposed protocol is not only immune to the attacks from external eavesdroppers, but also free from the attacks from internal betrayers.
In this study, we propose a single-state multi-party quantum key agreement (MQKA) protocol with single-particle measurement. Firstly, a single-state three-party quantum key agreement protocol with single-particle measurement is introduced, followed by a security analysis that validated its capability to resist potential internal and external attacks. Furthermore, we utilize multi-particle entangled states to present a multi-party version of the single-state multi-party quantum key agreement with single-particle measurement. In comparison to previous MQKA protocols, our approach presents the following advantages: it employs one kind of multi-particle entangled state as the quantum resource; eliminates the need for entanglement swapping techniques, unitary operations, or pre-shared keys between participants; uses only the X measurement basis and Z measurement basis; transmits fewer qubits; consumes fewer qubits; and has higher qubit efficiency.
Abstract In this paper, we study the properties of a set of quantum states. Based on these properties, we propose a multiparty semi-quantum key agreement (MSQKA) protocol. For the sake of clarity, we provide a three-party example to illustrate the protocol. Through rigorous security analysis, it is demonstrated that the proposed protocol can resist both inside attacks and outside attacks, which include Trojan horse attacks, measure-resend attacks, entangle-measure attacks and collective attacks. Besides, the proposed protocol achieves fairness among participants. Finally, we compare our protocol with other SQKA protocols. Compared to previous three-party and MSQKA protocols, our proposed protocol involves more classical parties, needs no external assistance and achieves relatively high key generation efficiency.
Abstract The key agreement protocols allow two or more users to negotiate a shared key for establishing a secure communication channel without a third trusted party in such a way that the shared key is determined by all authorized players rather than any subset of them. We propose the first real multiparty semiquantum key agreement (SQKA) protocols based on single-photons. Our protocols include only one quantum player, while the others are classical players who only need to measure and prepare states in the classical basis. We first present a symmetric three-party SQKA protocol, where two classical players can fairly negotiate a key with a quantum player by using single-photons as message carriers. Then we present an asymmetric SQKA protocol where a relatively low percentage of quantum states are used for eavesdropping detection. And we further extend them to an asymmetric multiparty SQKA protocol. Our SQKA protocols require fewer quantum resources than the previous SQKA protocols for classical players, especially without requirement of entanglement, which makes them easier to implement using current technologies. Our protocols are secure against external eavesdroppers and are fair against a minority of internal dishonest players.
Quantum key agreement (QKA) is to negotiate a final key among several participants fairly and securely. In this paper, we show that some existing travelling-mode multiparty QKA protocols are vulnerable to internal participant's attacks. Dishonest participants can exploit a favorable geographical location or collude with other participants to predetermine the final keys without being discovered. To resist such attacks, we propose a new travelling-mode multiparty QKA protocol based on non-orthogonal Bell states. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed protocol is secure against both external and internal attacks, and can achieve higher efficiency compared with existing travelling-mode multiparty QKA protocols. Finally we design an optical platform for each participant, and show that our proposed protocol is feasible with current technologies.
The fairness of a secure multi-party quantum key agreement (MQKA) protocol requires that all involved parties are entirely peer entities and can equally influence the outcome of the protocol to establish a shared key wherein no one can decide the shared key alone. However, it is found that parts of the existing MQKA protocols are sensitive to collusion attacks, i.e., some of the dishonest participants can collaborate to predetermine the final key without being detected. In this paper, a multi-party QKA protocol resisting collusion attacks is proposed. Different from previous QKA protocol resisting N−1N-1N−1 coconspirators or resisting 111 coconspirators, we investigate the general circle-type MQKA protocol which can be secure against ttt dishonest participants' cooperation. Here, t<Nt < Nt<N. We hope the results of the presented paper will be helpful for further research on fair MQKA protocols.
Abstract Quantum key agreement (QKA) constitutes a vital branch of quantum cryptography, referring to the collaborative establishment of a shared key among multiple participants. Among these, the three-party quantum key agreement (TPQKA) represents a specific form of QKA involving only three participants. Quantum states inevitably suffer from noise during transmission through quantum channels, which reduces the efficiency of qubits. To significantly improve the efficiency of qubits and further enhance their reliability in quantum applications, this paper proposes two TPQKA protocols based on seven-particle entangled states to provide protection against collective noise effects. In this paper, IBM Qiskit is employed to present the preparation circuit of the seven-particle entangled state, as well as the quantum circuits under two types of collective noise. In both protocols, the three parties apply a hash function to their own keys. In the particle transmission process, according to the measurement results of the particles, the three parties perform the corresponding unitary operation, and ultimately they equally negotiate the final shared key. Both protocols are robust against collective noise, and their qubit efficiency reaches 19.35%. In addition, the security analysis shows that both protocols are resistant to participant attacks and outside attacks, including intercept-resend attacks and entangle-measure attacks. This paper details the detection method of eavesdropping by eavesdroppers in collective noise through simulation, and finally presents key post-processing.