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arXiv:quant-ph/9901061 · Applicable Algebra in Engineering Communication and Computing

Quantum Key Distribution: from Principles to Practicalities

Dagmar Bruß, Norbert Lütkenhaus

Published May 1, 2000• 29 citations
arXivHTMLPDF
DOI
10.1007/s002000050137

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We consider the security of a system of quantum key distribution (QKD) using only practical devices. Currently, attenuated laser pulses are widely used and considered to be the most practical light source. For the receiver of photons, threshold (or on/off) photon detectors are almost the only choice. Combining the decoy-state idea and the security argument based on the uncertainty principle, we show that a QKD system composed of such practical devices can achieve the unconditional security without any significant penalty in the key rate and the distance limitation.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) can, in principle, provide unconditional security based on the fundamental laws of physics. Unfortunately, a practical QKD system may contain overlooked imperfections and may thus violate some of the assumptions in the security proofs of QKD. It is important to explore these assumptions. One key assumption is that the sender (Alice) can prepare the required quantum states without errors. However, such an assumption may be violated in a practical QKD system. In this paper, we perform a proof-of-principle experiment to demonstrate a technically feasible 'intercept- and-resend' attack that exploits such a security loophole in a commercial 'plug & play' QKD system. The resulting quantum bit error rate is 19.7%, which is substantially lower than the well-known 25% error rate for an intercept-and-resend attack in BB84. The attack we utilize is the phase-remapping attack (Fung et al 2007 Phys. Rev. A 75 32314) proposed by our group.