Traditional methods for user identity authentication in quantum communication networks require the involvement of trusted or semi-trusted third parties, leading to cumbersome procedures and security vulnerabilities. This paper proposes a quantum identity trust evaluation model independent of trusted third parties. Within the quantum communication network environment, we conduct a detailed study and present a model for evaluating user identity trust using quantum states transmitted through the network. This model effectively prevents repudiation, deception, and eavesdropping by network users, ensuring traceability, fairness, and impartiality in the user identity trust evaluation process.
Traditional methods for user identity authentication in quantum communication networks require the involvement of trusted or semi-trusted third parties, leading to cumbersome procedures and security vulnerabilities. This paper proposes a quantum identity trust evaluation model independent of trusted third parties. Within the quantum communication network environment, we conduct a detailed study and present a model for evaluating user identity trust using quantum states transmitted through the network. This model effectively prevents repudiation, deception, and eavesdropping by network users, ensuring traceability, fairness, and impartiality in the user identity trust evaluation process.
Trust is the premise and foundation of secure communication, no matter in the quantum communication or classical communication. In fact, the existing quantum secure communication protocols and technologies are implicitly related to trust; or assume some trust premise in advance; or create or obtain a trust relationship. This paper studies on quantum trust model using node trust evaluation based on author's own research achievements. We introduce the trust management into quantum communication network to build secure trusted quantum communication network based on evaluating the trust values of nodes, which are used to evaluate the reliability of each user. We put forward a scheme of quantum trust model based on node trust evaluation, and describe the thought and process of trust evaluation in detail based on the principles of quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation. We analyze the feasibility and safety of this scheme, which provides a new thinking and method for establishing a credible secure quantum communication network.
The absolute security of quantum communication protocols relies on a critical premise: all participating parties are legitimate users. Ensuring the legitimacy of participant identities is paramount in complex real-world communication environments. Quantum identity authentication (QIA), in which fundamental principles of quantum mechanics are used to achieve unilateral or mutual authentication between communicating parties, constitutes an indispensable core component for building a comprehensive quantum secure communication system. It holds significant research value in the field of quantum communication. This review employs a comparative classification method to systematically outline the research trajectory of QIA protocols. By categorizing protocols based on the required quantum resources and the types of quantum protocols employed, the advantages and disadvantages of various categories are analyzed in terms of efficiency, security, and practicality. Single-photon protocols require low resources, and they are easy to implement, and compatible with existing optical components, but require high-efficiency single-photon detectors and exhibit weak noise resistance. Entangled-state protocols offer high security and strong resistance to eavesdropping, particularly suitable for long-distance or multi-party authentication. However, they greatly depend on the preparation and maintenance of high-precision, stable multi-particle entanglement sources, resulting in high experimental complexity. Continuous-variable (CV) protocols achieve high transmission efficiency in short-distance metropolitan area networks and are compatible with classical optical communication equipment, making experiments relatively straightforward. Yet, they require high-precision modulation technology and are sensitive to channel loss. Hybrid protocols aim to balance resource efficiency and security while reducing reliance on a single quantum source, but their design is complex and may introduce new attack vectors. Quantum key distribution (QKD) framework protocols embed identity authentication in the key distribution process, making them suitable for scenarios requiring long-term secure key distribution, although they often depend on pre-shared keys or trusted third parties. Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) framework protocols integrate authentication with secure direct information transmission, offering high efficiency for real-time communication, but requiring high channel quality. Measurement-device-independent QSDC (MDI-QSDC) represents a key development direction that can resist attacks on measurement devices. Quantum teleportation (QT) framework protocols achieves cross-node authentication and unconditional security, making it suitable for quantum relay networks despite its high experimental complexity. The entanglement swapping framework protocol can resist conspiracy attacks and is suitable for multi-party joint scenarios, but it consumes a lot of resources and relies on trusted third party. Ping-pong protocol framework supports dynamic key updates and exhibits strong resistance to eavesdropping, making it suitable for temporary authentication on mobile terminals, although it typically only supports unilateral authentication and requires a bidirectional channel. Subsequently, this review details the latest QIA protocols of our research group, including a multi-party synchronous identity authentication protocol based on Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states, and a tripartite QSDC protocol with identity authentication capabilities utilizing polarization-spatial super-coding. The GHZ-based multi-party synchronous authentication protocol leverages the strong correlations inherent in GHZ states to achieve simultaneous authentication among multiple parties. Through a carefully designed two-round decoy-state detection mechanism, it effectively resists both external eavesdropping and internal attacks originating from authenticated users, thereby enhancing the efficiency and security of identity management in large-scale quantum networks. The core innovation of the polarization-spatial super-coding tripartite QSDC protocol lies in its deep integration of the authentication process with information transmission by utilizing the spatial degrees of freedom of single photons. This design accomplishes the identity verification of two senders and the transmission of secret information within a single protocol run, ensuring end-to-end security through a three-stage security check. This “authentication-as-communication” paradigm significantly improves the overall efficiency and practicality of the protocol. Its successful implementation also relies on advancements in quantum memory technology. Finally, the review outlines future research directions for quantum identity authentication and explores its potential applications in quantum communication. The QIA research needs to focus on reducing resource dependency, exploring more efficient protocol designs, further enhancing protocol integration and robustness, prioritizing the development of protocols adaptable to real-world environments, and actively investigating integration with novel scenarios. This comprehensive review aims to provide theoretical research foundations and technical support for the practical development of future quantum identity authentication.
In Wise Information Technology of Medicine, to ensure both confidentiality and integrity of the data created during online joint consultations, and to solve the problem that ordinary users cannot afford expensive quantum devices and are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks during communication, this paper proposes a three-party controlled authentication semi-quantum key agreement protocol, leveraging the measurement retransmission operation and the entanglement properties of Cluster states. With the help of a trusted controller with full quantum capabilities, the identities of three semi-quantum parties are authenticated, and a shared key is negotiated fairly for subsequent communication. Since the semi-quantum participants only need to perform simple quantum state preparation, measurement and reflection operations, the protocol reduces the requirements for participants' capabilities and equipment. Moreover, the protocol prevents man-in-the-middle attacks by authenticating the identity of participants. The security evaluation demonstrates that the protocol is capable of effectively defending against both internal participant threats and external intrusions. Moreover, a comparison with existing semi-quantum key agreement protocols reveals that this protocol offers certain advantages when its functionality and performance are comprehensively evaluated.
This study proposes a two-party quantum identity authentication protocol that does not require the participation of a third party. The protocol can verify the user’s identity without exposing the authentication key information, and it can be implemented with a single-photon state, which does not involve entanglement, enabling it to be combined with existing technologies. The shared key is protected by the protocol and hidden during communication, and the security of the authentication scheme is analyzed and verified under general attack. Further analysis results indicate that this protocol is secure and efficient.
This paper aims to solve the security issues between two parties communicating through a Quantum channel. One of the most effective factors in Quantum cryptography is the trust between two or more parties. Communication parties need to verify the authenticity of each other and who they claim to be. The proposed model introduces a trusted center as a new party. This will be used for key distribution and trust establishment. Thus, the trusted center will be part of the process of identity verification and key agreement. Although, the suggested model in this paper is introduced between two parties and a trust center, it could be extended to cover more parties by repeating the same process on each party. This paper provides a new mechanism to establish trust between different parties. In the presented technique, each party can assure that they are communicating with the legitimate party.
A novel approach to secure data transmission, quantum communication draws on fundamental principles of quantum physics. It ensures that the transmitted information is private and accurate. To provide security, quantum networks implement physical constraints such as the no-cloning rule and quantum entanglement. In contrast, computational complexity is employed by classical networks. However, with the proliferation of multiuser quantum networks, identity verification has become more challenging. People with malicious intentions might easily disrupt services in long-distance quantum networks by impersonating legitimate nodes and sharing entangled resources and quantum channels. This highlights the absolute necessity of secure authentication systems tailored to quantum environments. Enhancements to recent quantum authentication systems have been made utilizing techniques that are resistant to quantum computing. Researchers are looking into quantum digital signatures, entanglement-assisted protocols, and quantum key distribution (QKD) authentication to make multi-party communications more secure. In order to prevent attacks where a user establishes a fraudulent identity or account, these strategies can be applied to quantum networks. This study takes a look at current quantum authentication systems and gives them the once-over, focusing on how well they could handle multiple users. The article delves into the evolution of authentication systems to accommodate the distributed model, where nodes can function as senders, receivers, or relays. We aim to strike a compromise between practicality and security in our lightweight, low-latency protocols. Additionally, the paper discusses quantum-specific issues, such as side-channel attacks and device malfunctions, and how authentication techniques can help prevent them. Finally, this study demonstrates that authentication is the critical component of secure quantum communication for multiple users. The most secure quantum key distribution methods are still vulnerable to attacks from inside or outside the system if proper authentication is not in place.