Abstract Semi-quantum secret sharing facilitates the sharing of private data between quantum users and ‘classical’ users with limited quantum capabilities, thereby lowering the barrier to utilizing quantum technology. However, most current semi-quantum secret sharing protocols are confined to ideal environments and two-party scenarios. In this paper, we design two collective noise-resistant multi-party semi-quantum secret sharing protocols based on decoherence-free states to address potential noise interference during transmission. These protocols use decoherence-free states as information carriers for data interaction and exhibit strong resilience to both internal and external threats. We also conduct simulation experiments using IBM Qiskit to verify the stability and feasibility of the protocols in the noisy environments. The results of these experiments underscore the robustness of the protocols, particularly in the presence of collective noise. Compared with previous related protocols, our protocols have advantages in noise resistance and applicability to multi-party scenarios. Therefore, the proposed protocols may be more in line with the secret sharing needs of actual environments.
Abstract Semi-quantum secret sharing facilitates the sharing of private data between quantum users and ‘classical’ users with limited quantum capabilities, thereby lowering the barrier to utilizing quantum technology. However, most current semi-quantum secret sharing protocols are confined to ideal environments and two-party scenarios. In this paper, we design two collective noise-resistant multi-party semi-quantum secret sharing protocols based on decoherence-free states to address potential noise interference during transmission. These protocols use decoherence-free states as information carriers for data interaction and exhibit strong resilience to both internal and external threats. We also conduct simulation experiments using IBM Qiskit to verify the stability and feasibility of the protocols in the noisy environments. The results of these experiments underscore the robustness of the protocols, particularly in the presence of collective noise. Compared with previous related protocols, our protocols have advantages in noise resistance and applicability to multi-party scenarios. Therefore, the proposed protocols may be more in line with the secret sharing needs of actual environments.
Abstract Semi-quantum secret sharing (SQSS) protocols serve as fundamental frameworks in quantum secure multi-party computations, offering the advantage of not requiring all users to possess intricate quantum devices. However, current SQSS protocols mainly cater to bipartite scenarios, with few protocols suitable for multi-party scenarios. Moreover, the multi-party SQSS protocols face limitations such as low qubit efficiency and inability to share deterministic secret information. To address this gap, this paper proposes a multi-party SQSS protocol based on multi-particle GHZ states. In this protocol, the quantum user can distribute the predetermined secret information to multiple classical users with limited quantum capabilities, and only through mutual cooperation among all classical users can the correct secret information be reconstructed. By utilizing measure-flip and reflect operations, the transmitted multi-particle GHZ states can all contribute keys, thereby improving the utilization of transmitted particles. Then, security analysis shows that the protocol’s resilience against prevalent external and internal threats. Additionally, employing IBM Qiskit, we conduct quantum circuit simulations to validate the protocol’s accuracy and feasibility. Finally, compared to similar studies, the proposed protocol has advantages in terms of protocol scalability, qubit efficiency, and shared message types.
Quantum summation is one of the various applications in secure multi-party computation. However, most of the existing quantum summation protocols assume that the participants possess all the quantum devices. Considering future applications, the capability of the participants must be adjusted before it can be put into practical use. Although Boyer et al. proposed that the semi-quantum environment could be used to solve this problem; another practical problem is the interference by noise. In 2022, Ye et al. proposed a two-party semi-quantum summation (SQS) protocol resistant to the interference of collective noise, in which two classical participants can accomplish the summation of their private binary sequences with the assistance of a quantum semi-honest third party. They proved that their SQS protocol is resistant to various eavesdropping attacks. This paper unveils two risks of information leakage in Ye et al.’s SQS protocol. If the aforementioned security issues are not resolved, Ye et al.’s SQS protocol may not be able to perform private quantum computations securely. Fortunately, the SQS protocol against the collective-dephasing noise proposed in this study is free from the issue of information leakage as well as resistant to various quantum attacks. In addition, the quantum efficiency of the SQS protocol proposed in this study is four times higher than that of Ye et al.’s SQS protocol, which can effectively improve the quantum utilization rate.
Abstract Based on the decoherence‐free states, two multi‐party semi‐quantum private comparison protocols are proposed to counteract collective noises. One can resist the collective‐dephasing noise well, and the other can resist the collective‐rotation noise. With the assistance of a semi‐honest third party (TP), multiple classical participants with restricted quantum abilities can compare their secret information by performing the proposed protocols once. It is manifested that the proposed protocols can resist both external attacks and internal attacks. Additionally, the operations in the multi‐party semi‐quantum private comparison protocols are simulated on the IBM Quantum Experience.
The security of a secret sharing protocol is compromised if one or more dishonest participants can reconstruct the secret by deviating from the prescribed protocol, particularly when such malicious behavior remains undetected. Semi-Quantum Secret Sharing (SQSS) is a variant of secret sharing in which the participants possess only classical capabilities, such as preparing and measuring qubits in the computational (Z) basis, while a quantum-capable third party assists the dealer in generating and distributing quantum shares of a classical secret. The limited quantum capabilities of the participants in SQSS protocols may introduce vulnerabilities to collusion attacks, enabling an assisting quantum third party, in collaboration with a dishonest classical participant, to jointly recover the secret even without detection. In this work, we propose a novel SQSS protocol that eliminates this vulnerability and achieves information-theoretic security against collusion attacks. We further prove that the proposed protocol is secure against a broad class of external and internal attacks. Finally, a comparative analysis demonstrates that our construction advances existing SQSS protocols by simultaneously optimizing qubit efficiency, involves a classical dealer, and resilience against DCNA attacks using basic Bell states.
Abstract The fundamental concept of secret sharing involves dividing a secret into multiple parts and distributing them among several participants, who collectively safeguard the secret. When it comes to restoring the secret, cooperation among specific participants is necessary to reconstruct the original secret. Quantum secret sharing (QSS) employs quantum methods to address some limitations of classical secret sharing. Semi-QSS, an advancement of quantum methods, requires fewer quantum resources. Previous semi-quantum protocols demanded at least one participant with full quantum capabilities and randomly generated secret information. This paper introduces a protocol allowing three participants lacking complete quantum capabilities to share secret information of specific bits with the assistance of a third party possessing complete quantum capabilities. Unlike previous approaches, this protocol does not require participants to possess full quantum capabilities and shares secret information of specific bits. These characteristics make the protocol more practical and flexible for real-world applications.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is a cryptographic protocol that utilizes fundamental principles of quantum mechanics to securely distribute and reconstruct secret information among multiple participants. Most existing protocols rely on entangled states (such as Bell and GHZ states), but in practical applications. The preparation of entangled state is constrained by a short quantum coherence time, low state fidelity, etc., which makes it difficult to implement entangled resource-dependent QSS protocols. In this work, a novel practical and verifiable multi-party QSS protocol is proposed based on orthogonal product states, which are easier to prepare than entangled states. During the protocol preparation stage, the secret distributor first converts pre-shared classical secret information into the corresponding orthogonal product states according to the encoding rules, and pre-shares a communication key with participants via quantum key distribution (QKD), which is used to hide the initial quantum sequence information through subsequent particle transformation operations. After preparing the orthogonal product states, the distributor reorganizes the particles by position, extracting particles at the same position from each state to form new sequences, shuffling their order, then applying Hadamard operations using a pre-shared key, inserting decoy particles, and sending the sequences to the participants. After receiving it, participants conduct eavesdropping detection, use the same key for the inverse transformations, retain one particle from each sequence, and sequentially pass the remaining particles until the last participant receives a complete set, triggering state verification with the arbiter distributor. If the verification is successful, the particles will be returned to the first participant and the return stage will follow the same procedure. Only after both the transmission and return stage verifications have passed, will the distributor reveal the initial particle positions, allowing participants to collaboratively reconstruct the secret. In the protocol, the secret distributor acts as an arbitrator to verify the particle state information together with participants at designated points (the end of the transmission stage and the end of the return stage) in order to determine whether the particle-state information is error-free during transmission. If the verification fails at either stage, the protocol will be terminated immediately. Meanwhile, considering that the number of participants may change during the execution of the protocol, a dynamic scheme for personnel changes is designed to ensure the flexibility of the protocol. Through the analysis of possible internal and external attacks, It can be proven that our protocol can effectively resist the existing common attack. Using Qiskit simulation experiments, the core quantum procedures of the protocol can be successfully modeled. The experimental results provide strong computational validation of the theoretical feasibility of the protocol.