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arXiv:quant-ph/0507143 · Chinese Physics

Eavesdropping on the `ping-pong' quantum communication protocol freely in a noise channel

Deng Fu-Guo, Xihan Li, Chunyan Li, Ping Zhou, Hong-Yu Zhou

Published Jan 24, 2007• 36 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We introduce an attack scheme for eavesdropping freely the ping-pong quantum communication protocol proposed by Boström and Felbinger [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 89 , 187902 (2002)] in a noise channel. The vicious eavesdropper, Eve, intercepts and measures the travel photon transmitted between the sender and the receiver. Then she replaces the quantum signal with a multi-photon signal in the same state, and measures the returned photons with the measuring basis, with which Eve prepares the fake signal except for one photon. This attack increases neither the quantum channel losses nor the error rate in the sampling instances for eavesdropping check. It works for eavesdropping the secret message transmitted with the ping-pong protocol. Finally, we propose a way for improving the security of the ping-pong protocol.

DOI
10.1088/1009-1963/16/2/001

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We introduce an attack scheme for eavesdropping freely the ping-pong quantum communication protocol proposed by Boström and Felbinger [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 89 , 187902 (2002)] in a noise channel. The vicious eavesdropper, Eve, intercepts and measures the travel photon transmitted between the sender and the receiver. Then she replaces the quantum signal with a multi-photon signal in the same state, and measures the returned photons with the measuring basis, with which Eve prepares the fake signal except for one photon. This attack increases neither the quantum channel losses nor the error rate in the sampling instances for eavesdropping check. It works for eavesdropping the secret message transmitted with the ping-pong protocol. Finally, we propose a way for improving the security of the ping-pong protocol.
Security of the "ping-pong" quantum communication protocol recently proposed by Boström and Felbinger [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 187902 (2002)]] is analyzed in the case of considerable quantum channel losses. The eavesdropping scheme is presented, which reveals that the ping-pong protocol is not secure for transmission efficiencies lower than 60%. Our scheme induces 50% losses, which, however, can be hidden in the channel losses if one replaces the original lossy channel with a less lossy one. Finally, a possible improvement of the ping-pong protocol security is proposed.
We show an eavesdropping scheme on Bostr\UNICODE{0xf6}m-Felbinger communication protocol (called ping-pong protocol) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 187902 (2002)] in an ideal quantum channel. A measurement attack can be perfectly used to eavesdrop Alice's information instead of a most general quantum operation attack. In a noisy quantum channel, the direct communication is forbidden. We present a quantum key distribution protocol based on the ping-pong protocol, which can be used in a low noisy quantum channel. And we give a weak upper bound on the bit-error ratio that the detection probability ddd should be lower than 0.11, which is a requirement criterion when we utilize the ping-pong protocol in a real communication.
Ping-Pong quantum communication protocol may be employed to transmit deterministically information, so it has instrigued mang researchers. However, there are drawbacks on the security due to the symmetry of the employed two-way quantum channel. In this paper we propose a new attack strategy to eavesdrop the initially transmitted information based on the techniques of quantum error correction code (QECC). In addition, an attack strategy of Ping-Pong scheme based either entanglement state or nonorthogonal state is proofed and demonstrated, respectively. Furthermore, information obtained by Eve and the possible probability detected by the legitimate communicators are analyzed by employing information theorems. Detail proofs and analysis illustrate all previous Ping-Pong quantum communication schemes are insecure, i.e., the eavesdropper may obtain all available information without being detected.
The quantum secure direct communication is a new-style quantum communication scheme. It arouses much interest recently. The ping-pong protocol proposed by Bostroem and Felbinger is one of relatively mature quantum secure direct communication protocols, which is asymptotically secure under Eve's eavesdropping attack. But it ignores the message authentication. Being aimed at this problem, we propose a novel ping-pong protocol with authentication. The former has two operation modes, or the message mode and the control mode, which are used to send message and detect Eve's attack, respectively. But it just detects Eve's eavesdropping attack and does not authenticate the sent message in the control mode. The latter has also the above two operation modes, which employs a braid-based key agreement protocol for both the parties participating in communication to share a secret, whose size and magnitude are undecided in advance. Using the shared secret, it not only detects Eve's eavesdropping attack, but also effectively performs the message authentication in the control mode. It is also asymptotically secure under Eve's eavesdropping attack. The security of the proposed protocol is based on the no-cloning theorem, the correlations of quantum entanglement and the fact that the p-th root finding problem on braid groups is intractable even on quantum computers, as well as classical computers. In addition different from the original ping-pong protocol, the communication was initiated by the sender Alice instead of by the receiver Bob. This corresponds to the way of common communications. The present protocol not only can resist the attacks known recently, but should be experimentally feasible using today's technology.
Ping-Pong protocol is a Quantum Secure Direct Communication protocol that fails to transfer a secure key or secret message optimally in a lossy or noisy channel. The reason is an eavesdropper who possibly hides in the light of these channel losses and gains information about the secure key bits or secret messages. We propose an efficient modification to the control mode of the original Ping-Pong protocol leading to the detection of an eavesdropper with a much higher probability which may not allow her to hide in the light of lossy channels. Assuming that Eve knows and makes a fixed number of right guesses about the modification in the protocol, an optimum ratio of modification can be evaluated. In addition, it is shown that incorporation of the proposed modification in the protocol doubles the eavesdropper’s detection probability for certain eavesdropping operations.
In this paper, by introducing the additional classical information and taking advantage of the property of quantum entanglement swapping of two photon pairs instead of the property of quantum entanglement of a photon pair, the Bostrom–Felbinger protocol [Phys. Rev. Lett.89, 187902 (2002)] is improved. In the improved protocol, when the photon travels from the message receiver's site to the message sender's site, any attack can be detected in the control mode. Moreover, it is deterministically successful to transmit the secret messages in the message mode. The security of the present improved protocol against the eavesdropping is ensured by the Bostrom–Felbinger protocol, and besides, the attacks proposed by Cai [Phys. Rev. Lett.90, 109801 (2003)] to attack the Bostrom–Felbinger protocol without eavesdropping can be prevented.