Anonymous collision detection for practical quantum networks

Beili Gong, Fang Gao, Wei Cui

Awais Khan, Uman Khalid, Junaid ur Rehman +2 more

Abstract Quantum mechanics offers new opportunities for diverse information processing tasks in communication and computational networks. In the last two decades, the notion of quantum anonymity has been introduced in several networking tasks that provide an unconditional secrecy of identity for the communicating parties. In this article, we propose a quantum anonymous collision detection (QACD) protocol which detects not only the collision but also guarantees the anonymity in the case of multiple senders. We show that the QACD protocol serves as an important primitive for a quantum anonymous network that features tracelessness and resource efficiency. Furthermore, the security analysis shows that this protocol is robust against the adversary and malicious participants.

Yu‐Guang Yang, Yongli Yang, Xin-Long Lv +2 more

In a recent paper [A. Unnikrishnan et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 240501 (2019)], a quantum anonymous communication protocol was proposed in the presence of malicious agents and an untrusted source. Here, we point out that malicious agents can change the generated anonymous entanglement between the sender and the receiver without being detected, which means that the correctness of the generated anonymous entanglement should be reexamined. The way to check the above correctness is discussed.

Jiawei Liu, Qing-Xia Mu, Ronghua Che +3 more

Abstract Anonymous quantum communication (AQC) enables the secure transmission of quantum or classical messages between a sender and a receiver while ensuring the anonymity of their identities. Existing AQC protocols primarily address one-to-one anonymous communication. When there are multiple senders, they must send their messages sequentially to avoid collision problems. In this paper, we propose a multi-participant quantum anonymous communication (MQAC) by employing high-dimensional entangled states. In this protocol, multiple senders establish anonymous entanglement with multiple receivers of their choice and send quantum messages anonymously and simultaneously via quantum teleportation. To propose MQAC, we first present the toolbox we developed, which includes several sub-protocols such as the verification protocol, collision detection protocol, address distribution protocol, and notification protocol. These sub-protocols, which we propose, not only are important parts of MQAC but also serve as the foundation for solving many more complex tasks, such as anonymous commodity transaction. Additionally, the analysis of MQAC demonstrates that neither internal nor external attackers can steal the identities of the communication parties or the transmitted messages by employing any attack. Our work represents an original exploration of anonymous message transmission between multiple senders and receivers in quantum networks.

Kunihiko Sadakane, Norito Sugawara, Takeshi Tokuyama