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Advanced Quantum Technologies

Anonymous Quantum Secret Sharing

Yu‐Guang Yang, Ding‐Zhong Yang, Yuechao Wang, Guang‐Bao Xu, Dong‐Huan Jiang

Published Jul 31, 2025• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Secret sharing is a procedure for splitting a secret into several parts so that no subset of parts can reconstruct the secret, but the whole set can. In future quantum networks, enabling the splitting of secrets in an anonymous way is of significant importance for splitting secrets among participants while concealing their identities. Generally, multipartite entangled states such as Greenberger‐Horne‐Zeilinger (GHZ) states or W states are used for anonymously splitting secrets due to their symmetry with respect to the parties. However, no particle loss is tolerable for GHZ states, while only one‐particle loss is tolerable for W states in practical quantum networks. In this paper, an anonymous quantum secret sharing (AQSS) protocol is presented by using single particles and Einstein‐Podolsky‐Rosen (EPR) pairs. It is provably anonymous under realistic adversarial scenarios. Due to the anonymity of participants, it naturally removes the risk of participant attack, which is the greatest threat to existing quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols. The protocol is compared with existing ones and show that it has a higher ability of particle loss tolerance than existing ones based on multipartite entanglement. The existence of anonymous protocols without multipartite entanglement provides an important pathway for practical applications.

DOI
10.1002/qute.202500401

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Abstract Secret sharing is a procedure for splitting a secret into several parts so that no subset of parts can reconstruct the secret, but the whole set can. In future quantum networks, enabling the splitting of secrets in an anonymous way is of significant importance for splitting secrets among participants while concealing their identities. Generally, multipartite entangled states such as Greenberger‐Horne‐Zeilinger (GHZ) states or W states are used for anonymously splitting secrets due to their symmetry with respect to the parties. However, no particle loss is tolerable for GHZ states, while only one‐particle loss is tolerable for W states in practical quantum networks. In this paper, an anonymous quantum secret sharing (AQSS) protocol is presented by using single particles and Einstein‐Podolsky‐Rosen (EPR) pairs. It is provably anonymous under realistic adversarial scenarios. Due to the anonymity of participants, it naturally removes the risk of participant attack, which is the greatest threat to existing quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols. The protocol is compared with existing ones and show that it has a higher ability of particle loss tolerance than existing ones based on multipartite entanglement. The existence of anonymous protocols without multipartite entanglement provides an important pathway for practical applications.
Abstract Quantum secret sharing enables participants to share secrets grounded in the principles of quantum mechanics, ensuring the secrets recovery solely through collaborative efforts within an authorized subset of participants. Quantum anonymous secret sharing fulfills the fundamental requirements of quantum secret sharing while also ensuring the anonymity of the secret receivers. In order to address the turnover of personnel in practical scenarios, this paper propose a secure dynamic quantum anonymous secret sharing protocol utilizing Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. In our scheme, on the premise of not reveal the identities of participants, the dynamic update of the participants can be realized, and the shared secret will not be altered. Furthermore, an identity authentication mechanism using single particles is introduced in this protocol, ensuring that only authenticated participants can engage in the sharing process. The proposed protocol is secure and can resist both internal and external attacks. Experimental validation conducted on the IBM quantum computing platform demonstrates the feasibility of our scheme.
Abstract Quantum secret sharing (QSS) enables secure secret distribution via quantum mechanics, requiring authorized participants to collaborate for recovery. However, practical scenarios often involve classical users, demand recipient anonymity, and need dynamic participant management—features not simultaneously supported by existing schemes. This work presents a secure dynamic semiquantum anonymous secret sharing (DSQASS) protocol using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-like (GHZ-like) states. The design integrates three practical capabilities: semi-quantum operation for classical participants, dynamic membership updates, and statistical receiver anonymity. Rigorous analysis verifies the protocol’s correctness and resilience against internal and external adversaries. Simulations on a quantum cloud platform confirm its feasibility in hybrid quantum-classical environments.
Abstract Anonymous secret sharing (ASS) is an essential cryptographic concept that facilitates the sharing and reconstruction of secret information while safeguarding the identity of the involved secret receivers, which has broad applications in key management, data backup, and distributed systems. In this study, a novel authenticated quantum anonymous secret sharing (QASS) protocol that emphasizes information privacy and identity anonymity protection is proposed. Employing ‐level multipartite GHZ states as a quantum resource, one‐sided anonymous entanglement (AE) is innovatively established between the dealer and anonymous receivers, enabling the dealer to distribute a random share of secret information. Additionally, by establishing a one‐sided AE between anonymous receivers and restorer, the restorer can securely collect and reconstruct the secret information using quantum teleportation (QT). Rigorous security analysis demonstrates that protocol can resist attacks from active adversaries and potentially dishonest users. Quantum experiments on IBM Qiskit validate the correctness and feasibility of the proposed QASS protocol. This work contributes to the advancement of quantum anonymous communication, addressing the requirements for information privacy and identity anonymity in practical application environments.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is a crucial quantum cryptographic method that provides unconditional secu-rity through the principles of quantum mechanics and enables practical applications in information security and distributed computing. Many QSS protocols have been proposed based on various quantum properties and operations. In this study, we propose a new and efficient multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol that utilizes entanglement swapping with the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state and introduces a novel structure to efficiently and securely distribute and recover secrets. Due to entanglement swapping, participants can entangle systems without directly interacting with each other, enhancing practical usage. Through GHZ entanglement swapping, initial particle states cannot be directly inferred. The proposed QSS protocol leverages this property to encode information among participants. To decode the secret, participants only require measuring particles on a GHZ basis to get the corresponding information without performing operations. Through security analysis, it is shown that any eavesdropper or dishonest participant will be detected. Efficiency analysis indicates that the proposed protocol substantially reduces costs and significantly enhances efficiency. As the number of participants increases, the resource consumption of the proposed protocol becomes much lower than that of other QSS protocols. In summary, the proposed protocol efficiently achieves unconditional security in QSS, ensuring the secure transmission and sharing of quantum information.
Abstract Secure communication is one of the key applications of quantum networks. In recent years, following the demands for identity protection in classical communication protocols, the need for anonymity has also emerged for quantum networks. Here, we demonstrate that quantum physics allows parties—besides communicating securely over a network—to also keep their identities secret. We implement such an anonymous quantum conference key agreement by sharing multipartite entangled states in a quantum network. We demonstrate the protocol with four parties and establish keys in subsets of the network—different combinations of two and three parties—whilst keeping the participating parties anonymous. We additionally show that the protocol is verifiable and run multiple key generation and verification routines. Our work thus addresses one of the key challenges of networked communication: keeping the identities of the communicating parties private.
Abstract At present, most quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols are more or less designed with the incorporation of classical secret sharing schemes. With the increasing maturity of quantum technology, QSS protocols based on pure quantum mechanics are becoming more important. Classical secret sharing schemes cannot achieve absolute security, and their involvement can compromise the security of QSS protocols. This paper proposes a QSS scheme based on Greenberger–Horn–Zeilinger (GHZ) basis measurement and quantum entanglement exchange. In this protocol, the secret sender stores the secret information using Pauli operations. Participants obtain their shares by measuring the product state sequentially. Finally, participants complete the secret reconstruction through quantum entanglement exchange and other related quantum operations. In addition, the particles held by participants in the protocol do not contain any secret information. Each participant’s particles are in a state of maximum entanglement, and no participant can deduce the particle information of other participants through their own particles. At the same time, the protocol is based on pure quantum mechanics and does not involve classical schemes, which avoids the problem of reduced security of the protocol. Security analysis indicates that the protocol is not vulnerable to retransmission interception and collusion attacks. Moreover, it is capable of detecting and terminating the protocol promptly when facing with attacks from dishonest participants.