In this paper, a pair of quantum states are constructed based on an orthogonal array and further generalized to multi-body quantum systems. Subsequently, a novel physical process is designed, which is aimed at effectively masking quantum states within multipartite quantum systems. According to this masker, a new authenticable quantum secret sharing scheme is proposed, which can realize a class of special access structures. In the distribution phase, an unknown quantum state is shared safely among multiple participants, and this secret quantum state is embedded into a multi-particle entangled state using the masking approach. In the reconstruction phase, a series of precisely designed measurements and corresponding unitary operations are performed by the participants in the authorized set to restore the original information quantum state. To ensure the security of the scheme, the security analysis of five major types of quantum attacks is conducted. Finally, when compared with other quantum secret sharing schemes based on entangled states, the proposed scheme is found to be not only more flexible but also easier to implement based on existing quantum computing cloud platforms.
In this paper, a pair of quantum states are constructed based on an orthogonal array and further generalized to multi-body quantum systems. Subsequently, a novel physical process is designed, which is aimed at effectively masking quantum states within multipartite quantum systems. According to this masker, a new authenticable quantum secret sharing scheme is proposed, which can realize a class of special access structures. In the distribution phase, an unknown quantum state is shared safely among multiple participants, and this secret quantum state is embedded into a multi-particle entangled state using the masking approach. In the reconstruction phase, a series of precisely designed measurements and corresponding unitary operations are performed by the participants in the authorized set to restore the original information quantum state. To ensure the security of the scheme, the security analysis of five major types of quantum attacks is conducted. Finally, when compared with other quantum secret sharing schemes based on entangled states, the proposed scheme is found to be not only more flexible but also easier to implement based on existing quantum computing cloud platforms.
In this paper, drawing upon quantum state masking theory, we first propose a method that utilizes d-dimensional orthogonal arrays to encode quantum states into a multi-party quantum system. Building upon this foundation, we then design a quantum secret sharing scheme whose security is rooted in the principles of quantum information masking. This scheme is designed based on the hyperstar structure to define the access structure. Additionally, the protocol enables the transmission of arbitrary d-dimensional quantum states through quantum channels constructed using orthogonal arrays, ensuring that only participants within the access structure can recover the secret. We have thoroughly analyzed the security of this scheme against major quantum attacks, including intercept-resend attacks, entangle-measure attacks, and dishonest participant attack. In conclusion, our analysis examines the impact of four common types of noise on this protocol, confirming its immunity to dit-flip noise. Furthermore, we present a comparative analysis of the proposed scheme against existing quantum secret sharing protocols, highlighting its respective advantages.
Abstract Quantum secret sharing, a pivotal research domain within quantum cryptography, has significant applications across diverse fields such as information security and distributed quantum computing. This paper proposes a d-dimensional hierarchical quantum multi-secret sharing scheme with a general access structure. In the proposed scheme, the distributor constructs a special entangled state by leveraging the secret values at each level and a monotone span program. During the secret reconstruction phase, participants only need to measure the particles in their possession, and authorized participants at each level can recover multiple secrets shared at that level. Additionally, each participant can independently compute and obtain multiple lower-level secrets but cannot access any higher-level secret information. Compared to existing hierarchical quantum secret sharing schemes, the proposed scheme is better suited for specific application scenarios with unique requirements. Furthermore, security analysis demonstrates that the scheme can resist various attacks, such as measurement attacks, intercept-resend attacks, entanglement-measurement attacks, Trojan horse attacks, and collusion attacks.
Abstract Quantum secret sharing (QSS) has significant potential to improve secure communications. However, conventional QSS protocols, typically based on (n, n) or (t, n) threshold structures, require participants to possess symmetric authority, which is often impractical. To address scenarios with participants holding asymmetric privileges, we propose an innovative QSS scheme that realizes a hypergraph structure. This enables secret recovery only for authorized sets with the appropriate privileges. In detail, a specialized hypergraph structure is investigated to construct d-dimensional multipartite entangled states. Using these states, we develop an authenticated QSS protocol that enables secret recovery by authorized sets. Security analysis confirms the protocol’s resilience against common attacks, including intercept-resend, entangle-measure, dishonest participant and Trojan horse attacks. We further characterize the distinct impacts of dit-flip, phase-flip, dit-phase-flip, and depolarizing noise channels on quantum state transmission within the protocol. This characterization demonstrates that dynamically adapting error probability threshold according to prevailing noise conditions is essential to maintain security. Compared with existing protocols, our scheme improves quantum efficiency and reduces the number of unitary operations, which enhances its experimental feasibility.
Quantum secret sharing is an important branch of quantum cryptography, and secure multi-party quantum key distribution protocols can be constructed using quantum secret sharing. In this paper, we construct a quantum secret sharing scheme built on a constrained (t, n ) threshold access structure, where n is the number of participants and t is the threshold number of participants and the distributor. Participants from two different sets perform the corresponding phase shift operations on two particles in the GHZ state passed to them, and then t−1 participants with the distributor can recover the key, where the participant recovering the key measures the particles received by himself and finally obtains the key through the collaboration of the distributors. Security analysis shows that this protocol can be resistant to direct measurement attacks, interception retransmission attacks, and entanglement measurement attacks. This protocol is more secure, flexible, and efficient compared with similar existing protocols, which can save more quantum resources.
Quantum secret sharing plays a crucial role in quantum cryptography. The two main trends in quantum secret sharing are to address the problem of scheme failure due to participant spoofing and to improve the efficiency of quantum secret sharing. This paper focuses on the quantum secret sharing scheme with general access structure due to its flexibility. We design a special entangled state by resorting to Monotone Span Program (MSP). Based on the special 2-dimensional entangled state, an efficient and verifiable general quantum secret sharing (GQSS) scheme is proposed. In the GQSS scheme, the authorized participants only provide the X-basis measurement results of particles to recover and verify the shared secret, which makes that our scheme have lower communication consumption and quantum computational complexity. The analysis shows that the proposed scheme is simpler and more practical compared with related quantum secret sharing schemes.
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.