Quantum Enabled Data Authentication Without Classical Control Interaction
Piotr Zawadzki, Grzegorz Dziwoki, Marcin Kucharczyk, Jan Machniewski, Wojciech Sułek, Jacek Izydorczyk, Weronika Izydorczyk, Piotr Kłosowski, Adam Dustor, Wojciech Filipowski, Krzysztof Paszek, Anna Zawadzka
We present a quantum-assisted data authentication protocol that integrates classical information-theoretic security with quantum communication techniques. We assume only that the participants have access to open classical and quantum channels, and share a random static key material. Building on the Wegman–Carter paradigm, our scheme employs universal hashing for message authentication and leverages quantum channels to securely transmit random nonces, eliminating the need for key recycling. The protocol utilizes polar codes within Wyner’s wiretap channel model to ensure confidentiality and reliability, even in the presence of an all-powerful adversary. Security analysis demonstrates that the protocol inherits strong guarantees from both classical and quantum frameworks, provided the quantum channel maintains low loss and noise.
We present a quantum-assisted data authentication protocol that integrates classical information-theoretic security with quantum communication techniques. We assume only that the participants have access to open classical and quantum channels, and share a random static key material. Building on the Wegman–Carter paradigm, our scheme employs universal hashing for message authentication and leverages quantum channels to securely transmit random nonces, eliminating the need for key recycling. The protocol utilizes polar codes within Wyner’s wiretap channel model to ensure confidentiality and reliability, even in the presence of an all-powerful adversary. Security analysis demonstrates that the protocol inherits strong guarantees from both classical and quantum frameworks, provided the quantum channel maintains low loss and noise.
We propose a quantum protocol to authenticate classical messages that can be used to replace Wegman–Carter’s classical authentication scheme in quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols. We show that the proposed scheme achieves greater conditional entropy of the seed for the intruder given her (quantum) observation than the classical case. The proposed scheme is suitable for situations where the shared symmetric key used in authentication becomes dangerously short (due to noise or eavesdropping), and there is a threat that it might be completely consumed without being replaced. Our protocol is an improvement over a classical scheme by Brassard and takes advantage of quantum channel properties. It is motivated by information-theoretical results. We stress that the proposed authentication protocol can also be used as an independent authentication protocol that is not a part of a QKD. However by adopting it, QKD becomes a fully quantum protocol. We prove that quantum resources can improve both the secrecy of the key generated by the PRG and the secrecy of the tag obtained with a hidden hash function. We conclude that the proposed quantum encoding offers more security than the classical scheme and, by applying a classical result, we show that it can be used under noisy quantum channels.
We give a new class of security definitions for authentication in the quantum setting. These definitions capture and strengthen existing definitions of security against quantum adversaries for both classical message authentication codes (MACs) and well as full quantum state authentication schemes. The main feature of our definitions is that they precisely characterize the effective behavior of any adversary when the authentication protocol accepts, including correlations with the key. Our definitions readily yield a host of desirable properties and interesting consequences; for example, our security definition for full quantum state authentication implies that the entire secret key can be re-used if the authentication protocol succeeds. Next, we present several protocols satisfying our security definitions. We show that the classical Wegman-Carter authentication scheme with 3-universal hashing is secure against superposition attacks, as well as adversaries with quantum side information. We then present conceptually simple constructions of full quantum state authentication. Finally, we prove a lifting theorem which shows that, as long as a protocol can securely authenticate the maximally entangled state, it can securely authenticate any state, even those that are entangled with the adversary. Thus, this shows that protocols satisfying a fairly weak form of authentication security automatically satisfy a stronger notion of security (in particular, the definition of Dupuis, et al (2012)).
Authentication is a well-studied area of classical cryptography: a sender A and a receiver B sharing a classical secret key want to exchange a classical message with the guarantee that the message has not been modified or replaced by a dishonest party with control of the communication line. In this paper we study the authentication of messages composed of quantum states. We give a formal definition of authentication in the quantum setting. Assuming A and B have access to an insecure quantum channel and share a secret, classical random key, we provide a non-interactive scheme that enables A to both encrypt and authenticate an m qubit message by encoding it into m+s qubits, where the error probability decreases exponentially in the security parameter s. The scheme requires a secret key of size 2m+O(s). To achieve this, we give a highly efficient protocol for testing the purity of shared EPR pairs. It has long been known that learning information about a general quantum state will necessarily disturb it. We refine this result to show that such a disturbance can be done with few side effects, allowing it to circumvent cryptographic protections. Consequently, any scheme to authenticate quantum messages must also encrypt them. In contrast, no such constraint exists classically. This reasoning has two important consequences: It allows us to give a lower bound of 2m key bits for authenticating m qubits, which makes our protocol asymptotically optimal. Moreover, we use it to show that digitally signing quantum states is impossible.
In this paper, we investigate multi-message authentication to combat adversaries with infinite computational capacity. An authentication framework over a wiretap channel (W1,W2) is proposed to achieve information-theoretic security with the same key. The proposed framework bridges the two research areas in physical (PHY) layer security: secure transmission and message authentication. Specifically, the sender Alice first transmits message M to the receiver Bob over (W1,W2) with an error correction code; then Alice employs a hash function (i.e., ε-AWU2 hash functions) to generate a message tag S of message M using key K, and encodes S to a codeword Xn by leveraging an existing strongly secure channel coding with exponentially small (in code length n) average probability of error; finally, Alice sends Xn over (W1,W2) to Bob who authenticates the received messages. We develop a theorem regarding the requirements/conditions for the authentication framework to be information-theoretic secure for authenticating a polynomial number of messages in terms of n. Based on this theorem, we propose an authentication protocol that can guarantee the security requirements, and prove its authentication rate can approach infinity when n goes to infinity. Furthermore, we design and implement an efficient and feasible authentication protocol over binary symmetric wiretap channel (BSWC) by using \emph{Linear Feedback Shifting Register} based (LFSR-based) hash functions and strong secure polar code. Through extensive experiments, it is demonstrated that the proposed protocol can achieve low time cost, high authentication rate, and low authentication error rate.
In this paper, we investigate multi-message authentication to combat adversaries with infinite computational capacity. An authentication framework over a wiretap channel (W_1, W_2) is proposed to achieve information-theoretic security with the same key. The proposed framework bridges the two research areas in physical (PHY) layer security: secure transmission and message authentication. Specifically, the sender Alice first transmits message M to the receiver Bob over (W_1, W_2) with an error correction code; then Alice employs a hash function (i.e., ε-AWU_2 hash functions) to generate a message tag S of message M using key K, and encodes S to a codeword X^n by leveraging an existing strongly secure channel coding with exponentially small (in code length n) average probability of error; finally, Alice sends X^n over (W_1, W_2) to Bob who authenticates the received messages. We develop a theorem regarding the requirements/conditions for the authentication framework to be information-theoretic secure for authenticating a polynomial number of messages. Based on this theorem, we propose and implement an efficient and feasible authentication protocol over binary symmetric wiretap channel (BSWC) by using Linear Feedback Shifting Register based (LFSR-based) hash functions and strong secure polar code. Through extensive experiments, it is demonstrated that the proposed protocol can achieve low time cost, high authentication rate, and low authentication error rate.
The paper addresses entity authentication in quantum key distribution (QKD) systems as a decisive condition of their practical security. It is shown that the information-theoretic security of quantum key agreement does not eliminate the need to authenticate the communicating parties: an unauthenticated classical channel leaves the system exposed to the man-in-the-middle attack, since the eavesdropper can run independent QKD instances with each party and reconcile two keys under full control. Existing authentication methods are analysed and classified by the underlying cryptographic primitive: symmetric schemes based on Wegman–Carter universal hashing, pre-shared and fixed keys, public-key infrastructure, two-way authentication, quantum entity/identity authentication, and zero-knowledge proofs. For each class the operating principle, advantages and limitations are determined, with emphasis on key management, scalability and trust distribution. It is established that symmetric and quantum-layer methods rely on pre-shared secrets with a quadratic growth of key material, public-key infrastructure introduces a single trust bottleneck and quantum-vulnerable primitives, while existing zero-knowledge authentication schemes are quantum and bound to the physical layer or solve network properties other than identity. A comparative analysis reveals an unresolved scientific gap: the absence of a scalable entity-authentication method that simultaneously provides non-disclosure of the secret, quantum resistance, sub-quadratic scalability and minimisation of trust assumptions. On this basis, a prospective research direction is substantiated – the construction of entity-authentication methods based on post-quantum zero-knowledge proofs operating over the classical control plane of scalable QKD networks. The requirements for such a method are formulated, and its compatibility with formal QKD security proofs is discussed.