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New Journal of Physics

Quantum secure direct communication based on single-photon Bell-state measurement

Tao Li, Gui‐Lu Long

Published Apr 17, 2020• 119 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Security loopholes exploiting the flaws of practical apparatus, especially non-ideal photon detectors, are pressing issues in practical quantum communication. We propose a simple quantum secure direct communication protocol based on single-photon Bell-state measurement and remove side-channel attacks on photon detectors. This quantum communication protocol in principle works in a deterministic way, and it does not require the two-photon interference of photons from independent sources. The single-photon Bell-state measurement with a unity efficiency can be constructed with only linear optics, which significantly simplifies its experimental implementation. Furthermore, we prove that our quantum secure direct communication protocol is immune to general detector-side-channel attacks.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/ab8ab5

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Abstract Security loopholes exploiting the flaws of practical apparatus, especially non-ideal photon detectors, are pressing issues in practical quantum communication. We propose a simple quantum secure direct communication protocol based on single-photon Bell-state measurement and remove side-channel attacks on photon detectors. This quantum communication protocol in principle works in a deterministic way, and it does not require the two-photon interference of photons from independent sources. The single-photon Bell-state measurement with a unity efficiency can be constructed with only linear optics, which significantly simplifies its experimental implementation. Furthermore, we prove that our quantum secure direct communication protocol is immune to general detector-side-channel attacks.
Quantum communication is an important branch of quantum technology. It can safely transmit private information between legitimate parties and its unconditional security is guaranteed by quantum physics. So far, deterministic secure quantum communication without entanglement usually transmits single photons in two-way quantum channels. We propose a deterministic secure quantum communication proposal, and it requires a one-way quantum channel and a classical channel. In our protocol, a sender encodes logical bits by using two conjugate bases consisting of the polarization and time-bin degrees of freedom of a photon and transmits it to a receiver over a quantum channel. Upon receiving this photon, the receiver measures it randomly in two bases and can decode the bit deterministically with the help of the sender. Any attack from eavesdroppers will be detected by the legitimate parties. Furthermore, this protocol can be implemented with linear-optic elements and single-photon detectors.
Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) can transmit secret messages directly from one user to another without first establishing a shared secret key, which is different from quantum key distribution. In this paper, we propose a novel quantum secure direct communication protocol based on signal photons and Bell states. Before the execution of the proposed protocol, two participants Alice and Bob exchange their corresponding identity IDA and IDB through quantum key distribution and keep them secret, respectively. Then the message sender, Alice, encodes each secret message bit into two single photons (| 01〉or|10〉) or a Bell state , and composes an ordered secret message sequence. To insure the security of communication, Alice also prepares the decoy photons and inserts them into secret message sequence on the basis of the values of IDA and IDB. By the secret identity IDA and IDB, both sides of the communication can check eavesdropping and identify each other. The proposed protocol not only completes secure direct communication, but also realizes the mutual authentication. The security analysis of the proposed protocol is presented in the paper. The analysis results show that this protocol is secure against some common attacks, and no secret message leaks even if the messages are broken. Compared with the two-way QSDC protocols, the presented protocol is a one-way quantum communication protocol which has the immunity to Trojan horse attack. Furthermore, our proposed protocol can be realized without quantum memory.
Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) is a quantum communication paradigm that transmits confidential messages directly using quantum states. Measurement-device-independent (MDI) QSDC protocols can eliminate the security loopholes associated with measurement devices. To enhance the practicality and performance of MDI-QSDC protocols, we propose a one-photon-interference MDI QSDC (OPI-QSDC) protocol which transcends the need for quantum memory, ideal single-photon sources, or entangled light sources. The security of our OPI-QSDC protocol has also been analyzed using quantum wiretap channel theory. Furthermore, our protocol could double the distance of usual prepare-and-measure protocols, since quantum states sending from adjacent nodes are connected with single-photon interference, which demonstrates its potential to extend the communication distance for point-to-point QSDC.
Quantum secure direct communication enables a direct message exchange over a quantum channel without any key generation in advance. Here we present a feasible protocol for long-distance measurement-device–independent quantum secure direct communication. The secure distance is increased by using ancillary entangled photon-pair sources and relay nodes. Meanwhile, its security is independent from measurement devices, which eliminates the potential loophole for eavesdropping in the detection systems. Moreover, this protocol can be implemented with linear optical devices and single-photon detectors.
Multiparty quantum communication attracts continuous attention due to the better adaptability for the future quantum internet than point-to-point communication. Unfortunately, the imperfections of practical devices are exploited to take side-channel attacks which threatens the security of practical multiparty quantum communication. We propose a three-party detector-device-independent quantum secret sharing (DDI-QSS) protocol based on hyper-encoding and single-photon Bell-state measurement. It works in a deterministic way. The hyper-encoding circuit and single-photon Bell-state measurement device can be built with only linear optical elements, which makes the protocol more practical. Different from the measurement-device-independent setting, the DDI-QSS protocol does not require the multi-photon interference of photons from independent sources. We prove that it is secure against general entanglement-measure attacks launched by a dishonest participant.
Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) can directly transmit secrete messages through a quantum channel. Device-independent (DI) QSDC can guarantee the communication security relying only on the observation of the Bell-inequality violation, but not on any detailed description or trust of the inner workings of users' devices. In the paper, we propose a DI-QSDC protocol with practical highly efficient single-photon sources. The communication parties construct the entanglement channel from single photons by adopting the heralded architecture, which makes the message-leakage rate independent of the photon-transmission loss. The secure communication distance and the practical communication efficiency of the current DI-QSDC protocol are about 6 times and 600 times of those in the original DI-QSDC protocol. Combining with the entanglement purification, the parties can construct the nearly perfect entanglement channel and completely eliminate the message leakage. This DI-QSDC protocol may have useful applications in the future quantum communication field.