Quantum network coding is expected to enable multiple quantum data packets to be fused before the transmission via the bottleneck channel in order to improve the transmission efficiency and the total throughput of quantum networks. Although several quantum network coding schemes have been constructed, they are unable to meet the practical application requirements due to the fact that they lack a complete security solution. To tackle this issue, a practical secure quantum network coding scheme is constructed. Compared with existing methods, the proposed quantum network coding scheme is more practical and most importantly it can provide complete security against both information leakage and pollution attacks, which greatly contributes to global quantum communication networks.
Quantum network coding is expected to enable multiple quantum data packets to be fused before the transmission via the bottleneck channel in order to improve the transmission efficiency and the total throughput of quantum networks. Although several quantum network coding schemes have been constructed, they are unable to meet the practical application requirements due to the fact that they lack a complete security solution. To tackle this issue, a practical secure quantum network coding scheme is constructed. Compared with existing methods, the proposed quantum network coding scheme is more practical and most importantly it can provide complete security against both information leakage and pollution attacks, which greatly contributes to global quantum communication networks.
It is natural in a quantum network system that multiple users intend to send their quantum message to their respective receivers, which is called a multiple unicast quantum network. We propose a canonical method to derive a secure quantum network code over a multiple unicast quantum network from a secure classical network code. Our code correctly transmits quantum states when there is no attack. It also guarantees the secrecy of the transmitted quantum state even with the existence of an attack when the attack satisfies a certain natural condition. In our security proof, the eavesdropper is allowed to modify wiretapped information dependently on the previously wiretapped messages. Our protocol guarantees the secrecy by utilizing one-way classical information transmission (public communication) in the same direction as the quantum network although the verification of quantum information transmission requires two-way classical communication. In the protocol, some nodes may share secret randomness as resources in advance. Our secure network code can be applied to several networks including the butterfly network.
As an innovative theory and technology, quantum network coding has become the research hotspot in quantum network communications. In this paper, a quantum remote state preparation scheme based on quantum network coding is proposed. Comparing with the general quantum remote state preparation schemes, our proposed scheme brings an arbitrary unknown quantum state finally prepared remotely through the quantum network, by designing the appropriate encoding and decoding steps for quantum network coding. What is worth mentioning, from the network model, this scheme is built on the quantum k-pair network which is the expansion of the typical bottleneck network—butterfly network. Accordingly, it can be treated as an efficient quantum network preparation scheme due to the characteristics of network coding, and it also makes the proposed scheme more applicable to the large-scale quantum networks. In addition, the fact of an arbitrary unknown quantum state remotely prepared means that the senders do not need to know the desired quantum state. Thus, the security of the proposed scheme is higher. Moreover, this scheme can always achieve the success probability of 1 and 1-max flow of value k. Thus, the communication efficiency of the proposed scheme is higher. Therefore, the proposed scheme turns out to be practicable, secure and efficient, which helps to effectively enrich the theory of quantum remote state preparation.
Quantum network coding is vulnerable to pollution attacks, especially when using classical channel as auxiliary resource. On this basis, this letter proposes a secure quantum network coding scheme against pollution attacks. The scheme uses quantum homomorphic signature for the efficient authentication of different data sources so as to detect pollution attacks in the butterfly network. Furthermore, with the help of trusted intermediate nodes, it can locate a corrupt data source. Analysis results show that the proposed quantum network coding scheme can defend against pollution attacks with high fidelity, fewer resource consumption, and lower rate region.
In contrast to traditional "store-and-forward" routing mechanisms, network coding offers an elegant solution for achieving maximum network throughput.The core idea is that intermediate network nodes linearly combine received data packets so that the destination nodes can decode original files from some authenticated packets.Although network coding has many advantages, especially in wireless sensor network and peer-to-peer network, the encoding mechanism of intermediate nodes also results in some additional security issues.For a powerful adversary who can control arbitrary number of malicious network nodes and can eavesdrop on the entire network, cryptographic signature schemes provide undeniable authentication mechanisms for network nodes.However, with the development of quantum technologies, some existing network coding signature schemes based on some traditional number-theoretic primitives vulnerable to quantum cryptanalysis.In this paper we first present an efficient network coding signature scheme in the standard model using lattice theory, which can be viewed as the most promising tool for designing post-quantum cryptographic protocols.In the security proof, we propose a new method for generating a random lattice and the corresponding trapdoor, which may be used in other cryptographic protocols.Our scheme has many advantages, such as supporting multi-source networks, low computational complexity and low communication overhead.
We propose a novel hybrid universal network-coding cryptosystem (HUNCC) to obtain secure post-quantum cryptography at high communication rates. The secure network-coding scheme we offer is hybrid in the sense that it combines information-theory security with public-key cryptography. In addition, the scheme is general and can be applied to any communication network, and to any public-key cryptosystem. Our hybrid scheme is based on the information theoretic notion of individual secrecy, which traditionally relies on the assumption that an eavesdropper can only observe a subset of the communication links between the trusted parties - an assumption that is often challenging to enforce. For this setting, several code constructions have been developed, where the messages are linearly mixed before transmission over each of the paths in a way that guarantees that an adversary which observes only a subset has sufficient uncertainty about each individual message.
Instead, in this paper, we take a computational viewpoint, and construct a coding scheme in which an arbitrary secure cryptosystem is utilized on a subset of the links, while a pre-processing similar to the one in individual security is utilized. Under this scheme, we demonstrate 1) a computational security guarantee for an adversary which observes the entirety of the links 2) an information theoretic security guarantee for an adversary which observes a subset of the links, and 3) information rates which approach the capacity of the network and greatly improve upon the current solutions.
A perhaps surprising consequence of our scheme is that, to guarantee a computational security level b, it is sufficient to encrypt a single link using a computational post-quantum scheme. In addition, the information rate approaches 1 as the number of communication links increases.
Abstract Over the past four decades, quantum communication has evolved as a dynamic interdisciplinary field, advancing theoretical concepts and practical implementations. This article provides a concise overview focusing on recent progress in different aspects of secure quantum communication and quantum computation protocols, which can be applied to several real-world applications in quantum networks. These protocols guarantee unconditional security while enhancing communication rates and computation capabilities by harnessing quantum advantages. We also explore the role of non-terrestrial networks in quantum applications, with a focus on quantum technologies such as quantum key distribution and beyond, suitable for satellite-based applications. These technologies can contribute to future extensions of the quantum internet across intercontinental territories, connecting complex quantum network applications. Further, we delve into discussing the integration of quantum communication into 6G technology. The key innovation of this article lies in integrating quantum communication into 6G networks through a novel system-level simulation framework. 6G-enabled quantum networks are expected to meet the high demands on ubiquitous coverage, data rate, latency, and energy consumption. To address these issues, we design and evaluate four traffic demand scenarios using numerical simulation, illustrating how superdense coding doubles the data transmission rate and fulfills the high traffic demands on data rate, while under low traffic demand, entanglement resources can be reserved for future applications. Specifically, our investigation demonstrates how resource utilization adapts to different traffic demands, with adjustments based on available resources and practical constraints, evaluated over an ideal noise-free communication channel. The proof-of-work simulation is implemented using Python and is based on the system model we designed for varying traffic demands to pave the way for efficient quantum networks and gain deeper insights into their feasibility with available resources.