Due to the rapid advancement of quantum computers, there has been a furious race for quantum technologies in academia and industry. Quantum cryptography is an important tool for achieving security services during quantum communication. Designated verifier signature, a variant of quantum cryptography, is very useful in applications like the Internet of Things (IoT) and auctions. An identity-based quantum-designated verifier signature (QDVS) scheme is suggested in this work. Our protocol features security attributes like eavesdropping, non-repudiation, designated verification, and hiding sources attacks. Additionally, it is protected from attacks on forgery, inter-resending, and impersonation. The proposed scheme benefits from the traditional designated verifier signature schemes. In the proposed scheme, the signer encrypts a message with his or her private key, and the designated verifier validates the accompanying QDVS using the signer’s public key, which is the signer’s name or email address, which makes the quantum signature system’s key management simpler. It uses an entangled state while signing and verifying the signature; however, the verifier is not required to compare quantum states. A detailed comparison analysis with other similar schemes provides more security for the proposed scheme. Furthermore, the proposed scheme’s effectiveness and feasibility are validated using quantum simulations.
Due to the rapid advancement of quantum computers, there has been a furious race for quantum technologies in academia and industry. Quantum cryptography is an important tool for achieving security services during quantum communication. Designated verifier signature, a variant of quantum cryptography, is very useful in applications like the Internet of Things (IoT) and auctions. An identity-based quantum-designated verifier signature (QDVS) scheme is suggested in this work. Our protocol features security attributes like eavesdropping, non-repudiation, designated verification, and hiding sources attacks. Additionally, it is protected from attacks on forgery, inter-resending, and impersonation. The proposed scheme benefits from the traditional designated verifier signature schemes. In the proposed scheme, the signer encrypts a message with his or her private key, and the designated verifier validates the accompanying QDVS using the signer’s public key, which is the signer’s name or email address, which makes the quantum signature system’s key management simpler. It uses an entangled state while signing and verifying the signature; however, the verifier is not required to compare quantum states. A detailed comparison analysis with other similar schemes provides more security for the proposed scheme. Furthermore, the proposed scheme’s effectiveness and feasibility are validated using quantum simulations.
Abstract Designated verifier signature (DVS) schemes can be applied in many scenes, such as E-voting and E-bidding use DVS attributes to protect the secret of participants. Most traditional DVS schemes are vulnerable to quantum computer attacks. Then, an identity-based semi-trusted third-party quantum DVS (STQDVS) scheme is proposed, which is safe for quantum means of attack. In new STQDVS scheme, the third participant prepares entangled Bell states and allocates them to the signer and the designated verifier (DV). The signer uses the identity information as her public key and the measurement results of corresponding quantum sequences as her private key to generate the signature. The DV applies the identity information as his public key and the measurement results of corresponding quantum sequences as her private key to verify the signature. Non-transferability and hidden origin are guaranteed by the fact that the DV can generate the same signature as the signatory by means of a simulated signature step. Security analysis has shown that attacks such as forgery, inter-resending, and impersonation are ineffective for the proposed scheme and that even third-party cannot forge signatures. On the other hand, the whole process of the scheme does not require any quantum key distribution protocols, quantum one-way functions, and quantum state exchange tests, which makes the STQDVS scheme relatively simple and more efficient than similar schemes.
A digital signature with designated verifier (SWDV) makes that only the designated verifier can verify its validity. It can be used to protect the privacy and economic interest of the signer. So, the SWDV schemes have many applications in e-voting, auction and some other fields. To make the SWDV secure against the quantum forger, a quantum signature with designated verifier signature (QSWDV) scheme is proposed. Our QSWDV is robust due to its strong security against forgery attack, inter-resending attacks, impersonation attacks and Trojan horse attacks. Its properties such as non-transferability and hiding source can be guaranteed by the signature simulation of the designated verifier. What is more, our scheme can be proved to be information-theoretically secure, which can guarantee the secrecy of the signer’s private key and the unforgeability of the QSWDV. In the proposed QSWDV scheme, the partners neither need use quantum one-way function nor need perform quantum state comparisons, which can reduce the complexity and improve the efficiency the QSWDV scheme.
Abstract Quantum Designated Verifier Signature (QDVS) is a cryptographic scheme based on quantum mechanics in which a signature can be verified only by a specific designated verifier. Recently, Xin et al. (Quantum Information Processing, 2020, 19(3):79) proposed a QDVS scheme based on Bell states and claimed that it was secure. However, we demonstrate that their scheme is vulnerable to forgery attacks. To overcome this vulnerability, we propose an improved QDVS scheme utilizing single qubits and unitary operations. Compared with Xin et al.'s scheme, our scheme requires neither a trusted center (TC) nor quantum entanglement resources, thereby greatly reducing the implementation complexity. Our security analysis demonstrates that our scheme can resist common attacks, including inter-resending, forgery, and impersonation attacks.
Most of the classical designated verifier signature schemes are insecure against quantum adversary. In this paper, a quantum signature scheme for the designated verifier is proposed. In our scheme, during the initialization phase, the partners share secret keys by performing the quantum key distribution protocol. On the other hand, by performing the quantum direct communication protocol, the key generator center shares secret keys with the signer and the designated verifier, respectively. The key generator center generates a particle sequence of Bell state and distributes the particles between the signer and the designated verifier. During the signature generation phase, the signer encrypts the particle sequence by the secret keys and Hardmard operators. After that, the signer performs the controlled unitary operations on the encrypted particle sequence so as to generate the quantum signature. The designated verifier can simulate the quantum signature by performing the same symmetric signing steps as that performed by the original signer. Hence, the quantum signature signed by the true signer is the same as the one simulated by the receiver, which makes our scheme possess the designated properties. During the signature verification phase, the designated verifier performs the controlled unitary operations on the quantum signature and obtains the quantum ciphertexts. After that, the designated verifier decrypts the quantum ciphertexts by the symmetric secret keys and Hardmard operators so that the quantum signature can be verified. Our signature is secure against forgery attack, inter-resending attacks and Trojan horse attack. Because the trace distance between the density operators of different quantum signatures is zero, the information-theoretical security of our quantum signature scheme can be proved. The unconditionally secure quantum key distribution protocol and the one-time pad encryption algorithm can guarantee the security of the secret keys shared by the partners. What is more, the security assumption about the key generation center is weak. That is, it is not necessary to assume that the key generation center should be fully trusted. On the other hand, in our scheme, the quantum one-way function is not used. To generate a quantum signature, the signer need not prepare for entangled particle sequence. To verify a quantum signature, the verifier need not apply any state comparison to the received particles. The qubit efficiency is 100%. Therefore, our scheme has the advantages in the security and efficiency over the other quantum signature schemes for the designated verifier.
The rapid advancement of internet technology has raised attention to the importance of electronic voting in maintaining democracy and fairness in elections. E-voting refers to the use of electronic technology to facilitate the casting and counting of votes in elections. The need for designated verification arises from concerns about voter privacy, auditability, and the prevention of manipulation. Traditional e-voting systems use cryptographic techniques for security but lack verifiable proof of integrity. Integrating e-voting with a quantum designated verifier could address these challenges by leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics to enhance security and trustworthiness. In light of this, we propose a quantum e-voting scheme that uses a designated verifier signature. To ensure the confidentiality and authenticity of the voting process, the scheme uses quantum features like the no-cloning theorem and quantum key distribution. The proposed scheme has security properties like source hiding, non-transferability, and message anonymity. The proposed scheme is resistant to many quantum attacks, such as eavesdropping and impersonation. Due to designated verification, the scheme minimizes the risk of tempering. This paper provides a detailed description of the proposed scheme and analyzes its security properties. Therefore, the proposed scheme is efficient, practical, and secure.
Based on the Hadamard operator and Bell states, an identity-based public-key quantum signature scheme is proposed. In our scheme, the signer’s identity is used as her public key. Her private keys are generated by the trusted private key generator (PKG). Given a quantum signature, the verifier can verify the validity of the quantum signature by the signer’s identity information without any public-key certificate. So, our quantum signature has the advantages of the identity-based signature system. On the other hand, in our scheme, it need not use the long-term quantum memory. The verifier need not perform any quantum swap test or state comparison algorithm. What is more, our quantum signature is secure against PKG’s forgery attack. And the disputation of losing quantum signature can be arbitrated by PKG. Therefore, our scheme is relatively more practical and efficient than the similar schemes.