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IEEE Access

A Key Verification Protocol for Quantum Key Distribution

Güneş Karabulut Kurt, Enver Ozdemır, Neslihan Ayşen Özkirişçi, Ozan Alp Topal

Published Jan 1, 2019• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Sharing a secret key between two physically separated nodes, Alice and Bob, is possible through the use of quantum key distribution (QKD) techniques. In the presence of an eavesdropper, Alice's key may not be identical with Bob's key, due to the characteristics of a quantum channel. To obtain identical keys at Alice and Bob, we propose a block-based key verification protocol that relies on Newton's polynomial interpolation. As the nodes solely share random numbers and indices of the removed blocks, no information is revealed about the secret message, at a cost of higher computational complexity. The error propagation through the key verification process is prevented by the characteristics of the proposed approach.

DOI
10.1109/access.2019.2943478

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Sharing a secret key between two physically separated nodes, Alice and Bob, is possible through the use of quantum key distribution (QKD) techniques. In the presence of an eavesdropper, Alice's key may not be identical with Bob's key, due to the characteristics of a quantum channel. To obtain identical keys at Alice and Bob, we propose a block-based key verification protocol that relies on Newton's polynomial interpolation. As the nodes solely share random numbers and indices of the removed blocks, no information is revealed about the secret message, at a cost of higher computational complexity. The error propagation through the key verification process is prevented by the characteristics of the proposed approach.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) could share a secret key between two distant nodes Alice and Bob. In the presence of an eavesdropper and noisy channel, Alice’s key may not be the same as Bob’s key. Thus, QKD protocol has to provide not only the distribution in key agreement phase but also the integrity in key verification phase. Error reconciliation is often used in QKD to share identical keys between Alice and Bob in key verification phase. Recently, Kurt et al. introduce a reconciliation algorithm for QKD (RQKD) to prevent error propagation in some previous reconciliation algorithms. Kurt et al.’s RQKD is a block-wise operation, and uses polynomial interpolation for reconciliation. However, if the x-axis values of polynomials are the same the blocks are removed. In this paper, we propose an enhanced RQKD (ERQKD) to deal with this weakness. When using polynomial-interpolation approach for reconciliation, our ERQKD without deleting block improves the efficiency of sharing qubits.
Abstract In quantum cryptography, secret communications are delivered through a quantum channel. One of the most important breakthroughs in quantum cryptography has been the quantum key distribution (QKD). This process enables two distant parties to share secure communications based on physical laws. However, eavesdroppers can still interrupt the communication. To overcome this, we propose a different way to detect the presence of Eve through the polynomial interpolation technique. This technique also allows us for key verification. This approach prevents the receiver as well as the intruder from discovering the sender’s fundamental basis. To fully utilize IBM quantum computers’ quantum computing capabilities, this paper attempts to show % error against alpha (strength of eavesdropping) and the impact of noise on the success probability of the desired key bits. Furthermore, the success probability under depolarizing noise is explained for different qubit counts. In the enhanced QKD protocol, using polynomial interpolation for reconciliation shows a 50% probability of successful key generation. This is even when the noise is increased to the maximum capacity.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a secure communication protocol that uses quantum bits (qubits) to ensure the security of key exchange between two entities (Alice and Bob). Their shared qubits may suffer from errors due to noise and eavesdropping in the quantum channels. After the QKD key agreement phase, Alice's key may not be different from Bob's key. Therefore, we need key verification to deal with the inconsistent qubits (i.e. the wrong qubits at receiver end). This key verification process is also known as information reconciliation. Recently, Kurt et al. proposed a reconciliation in QKD (RQKD) by using the polynomial consistency property. In this paper, we propose an enhanced RQKD (ERQKD) to improve key verification. Our method is still based on polynomial consistency, but uses the properties of consistency in a different way to obtain better key verification efficiency.
In this work, we propose a novel key reconciliation protocol for the quantum key distribution (QKD). Based on Newton's polynomial interpolation, the proposed protocol aims to correct all erroneous bits at the receiver without revealing information to the eavesdropper. We provide the exact frame error rate (FER) expression of the proposed protocol. The inherent nature of the proposed algorithm ensures correcting all erroneous bits if the algorithm succeeds. We present an information-theoretical proof that the revealed information during the key reconciliation process is equal to zero. We also provide a numerical comparison of our algorithm with the asymptotic performance of the error-correcting codes and two exemplary low-density-parity-check (LDPC) codes. The results highlight that our algorithm provides superior performance when compared to the LDPC codes, regardless of the distance between Alice and Bob. Furthermore, the proposed key reconciliation protocol is usable for the longer quantum link distances than the state-of-the-art protocols.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is intended to produce cryptographic secret keys between two remote parties, usually called Alice and Bob. Even though QKD has been proven to be unconditionally secure against the eavesdropper, commonly called Eve, practical implementations of QKD may contain vulnerabilities that may lead to the generated secret keys being compromised. In order to detect the presence of the eavesdropper in the channel, in our proposal Alice introduces an interleaved sequence of decoy states which produce a characteristic distribution at Bob's station. Thus, in analyzing such distribution in presence and absence of the eavesdropper Eve, her activity in the channel is detected. This protocol doesn’t require changes at the quantum physical level, but it can be incorporated at the high software level.
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.