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Annalen der Physik

Semi‐Quantum Signature Protocol Using EPR Steering and Single Photons

Chun‐Wei Yang

Published Oct 29, 2024• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract This study tackles critical issues in semi‐quantum signature (SQS) protocols to enhance security and efficiency. It revisits Xia et al.’s SQS protocol, which uses EPR steering for security but introduces inconsistencies in a semi‐quantum environment. Xia et al. assume that both the signatory and arbitrator have full quantum capabilities, while the verifier only has partial capabilities, making them a classical participant. However, their protocol requires the verifier to perform eavesdropping checks, necessitating quantum storage, which is not aligned with a semi‐quantum environment. The study proposes a novel SQS protocol using EPR steering and single photons, with pre‐shared keys to determine photon arrangements to address this. This ensures that only the communicating parties know the inspection and message transmission locations, solving the quantum storage issue and enabling efficient eavesdropper detection and identity authentication. This new protocol adheres to semi‐quantum principles and sets a foundation for future advancements in quantum cryptography and secure communication.

DOI
10.1002/andp.202400260

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Abstract This study tackles critical issues in semi‐quantum signature (SQS) protocols to enhance security and efficiency. It revisits Xia et al.’s SQS protocol, which uses EPR steering for security but introduces inconsistencies in a semi‐quantum environment. Xia et al. assume that both the signatory and arbitrator have full quantum capabilities, while the verifier only has partial capabilities, making them a classical participant. However, their protocol requires the verifier to perform eavesdropping checks, necessitating quantum storage, which is not aligned with a semi‐quantum environment. The study proposes a novel SQS protocol using EPR steering and single photons, with pre‐shared keys to determine photon arrangements to address this. This ensures that only the communicating parties know the inspection and message transmission locations, solving the quantum storage issue and enabling efficient eavesdropper detection and identity authentication. This new protocol adheres to semi‐quantum principles and sets a foundation for future advancements in quantum cryptography and secure communication.
Abstract We present a new semi-quantum signature protocol which is suitable for participant without quantum capabilities to communicate securely. In addition, the application of EPR steering is first extended to the field of quantum digital signature in our protocol. On the one hand, in order to avoid attacks by attackers, our protocol allows one participant to determine the identity of the other, if the steering conditions for EPR steering are satisfied. On the other hand, original message can be transmitted between participants via EPR steering. Moreover, our scheme is simple to implement and more efficient. The security analysis shows that our protocol can avoid the attack of deny, forgery and entangle-measure.
Semi-quantum signature (SQS) schemes aim to enable quantum signature functionality in scenarios where only a subset of participants possess full quantum capabilities, thereby improving practical deployability while preserving quantum security advantages. Within this framework, we present a practical SQS protocol based on Bell states. The protocol is designed so that only the signer requires full quantum capability, significantly alleviating the quantum burden on the remaining participants. To strengthen security in semi-quantum environments, we incorporate an improved eavesdropping-detection mechanism that more effectively detects tampering. Compared with many existing schemes, which do not explicitly consider tampering of already generated signatures in their unforgeability analyses, the proposed protocol is designed to remain secure in the presence of such tampering.
Semi-quantum protocol is a hot topic in quantum cryptography. One of the original motivational reasons to study semi-quantum protocol is to better understand “how quantum” a protocol needs to be in order to gain an advantage over its classical counterpart. Semi-quantum secure direct communication (SQSDC) is an important branch of the semi-quantum protocol, which makes it possible to directly transfer large amounts of data between quantum participant and classical participant without need to share the secret key in advance. In this paper, we propose two new SQSDC protocols based on single photons to study how to reduce the quantum resource requirements of both quantum participant and classical participant. In both protocols, the classical participant requires neither quantum memory or quantum delay lines. We first propose in the first protocol that the quantum participant only need to prepare single-state qubits in the preparation phase, which is different from previous SQSDC protocols. Then we propose in the second protocol that quantum participant can accomplish the same work as the first one even without quantum memory. Efficiency analysis shows that the first protocol is more efficient than some protocol, and the second one can save more quantum resources at the expense of some efficiency. Compared with the existing SQSDC protocols based on single photons, both protocols can use fewer quantum states or quantum resource requirements than other protocols. Finally, we analyze the security of both protocols.
This study proposes a multiparty single-photon semi-quantum secret sharing (SQSS) protocol to simultaneously improve quantum bit (qubit) efficiency and practical feasibility. Existing quantum secret sharing protocols typically assume that all participants possess full quantum capabilities, which limits their deployment in real-world environments. To address this issue, the proposed protocol was designed using a semi-quantum model, allowing N agents with limited quantum capabilities to participate in the secret-sharing process. In terms of efficiency, the proposed protocol employs single photons as quantum resources and is analyzed under a unified definition of qubit efficiency. The results show that the qubit efficiency of the proposed protocol reaches 12N\frac{1}{2N}2N1​ , which is comparable to the best recent quantum secret sharing protocols and outperforms most existing SQSS methods. Unlike certain protocols in which qubit efficiency decreases exponentially with the number of participants, the quantum resource consumption of the proposed protocol increases linearly with the number of agents. Consequently, its qubit efficiency decreases proportionally to 1N\frac{1}{N}N1​ , rather than exponentially, providing better scalability as the number of agents increases. In terms of security, the protocol is analyzed against several attack models, including intercept-resend, entangle-and-measure, collective, and collusion attacks. The analysis shows that an adversary cannot obtain useful information without detection under these attacks, demonstrating the robustness of the proposed protocol.
Arbitrated signature provides that the signatory signs a message with his private key by quantum cryptography, while the signature receiver verifies the signature with the arbitrator’s assistance. In this work, security analysis was given to the arbitrated quantum signature (AQS) and results showed that the receiver Bob and the attacker can forge the signature. Then this paper gives a new quantum one-time pads encryption method, which is suit for the quantum signature. At last, a new AQS protocol using Einstein-Podoisky-Rosen (EPR) pairs is proposed. By using of  quantum key distribution (QKD) and new quantum one-time pads, the new scheme can resist Shor’s attack. The new scheme has following advantages: (1) The scheme reduces the complexity of implementation and provides a higher efficiency in transmission; (2) Compares with some AQS schemes, the scheme can avoid being disavowed by the receiver; (3) Compares with other AQS schemes, the scheme also guarantees the arbitrator cannot forge the signature and it also ensure the receiver and other attacker cannot forge the signature.
Currently, quantum signature protocols assume that all participants in the protocol (signers, verifiers, and arbitrators) should exhibit quantum capabilities. If quantum devices are lacking, the quantum signature protocol cannot be implemented. However, quantum devices are not widely used, and not all users can own quantum devices. Boyer et al. first proposed the concept of the semi-quantum environment. Zhao et al. proposed a semi-quantum signature protocol with double signers based on the W state. Yang et al. discovered that in the semi-quantum signature protocol with double signers developed by Zhao et al., an internal attacker could launch an impersonation attack during the verification and signature stages to capture the private key and use it to impersonate the user’s identity. In addition, the eavesdropper can obtain all the secret information of the signers by performing a man-in-the-middle attack. All three attack modes can pass the eavesdropping check. Hence, if these security problems are not solved, the signature of the semi-quantum signature protocol with double signers proposed by Zhao et al. cannot be completed safely. Therefore, based on Bell states, a new semi-quantum signature protocol of double signers was developed in this study. The proposed protocol not only resists impersonation attacks and man-in-the-middle attacks but also resists other common attack modes.