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arXiv:quant-ph/9912053

A Proof of the Security of Quantum Key Distribution

Eli Biham, Michel Boyer, P. Oscar Boykin, Tal Mor, Vwani Roychowdhury

Published Dec 11, 1999• 59 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We prove the security of quantum key distribution against the most general attacks which can be performed on the channel, by an eavesdropper who has unlimited computation abilities, and the full power allowed by the rules of classical and quantum physics. A key created that way can then be used to transmit secure messages in a way that their security is also unaffected in the future.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/9912053

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We prove the security of quantum key distribution against the most general attacks which can be performed on the channel, by an eavesdropper who has unlimited computation abilities, and the full power allowed by the rules of classical and quantum physics. A key created that way can then be used to transmit secure messages in a way that their security is also unaffected in the future.
Recently Boykin, Biham, Boyer, Mor, and Roychowdhury (BBBMR) proved the security of standard quantum key distribution against the most general attacks which can be performed on the channel [1]. The attack is performed by an eavesdropper who has unlimited computation abilities, and who uses the full power allowed by the rules of classical and quantum physics. The final key can then be used to transmit secure messages in a way that their security is also unaffected in the future. We explain here some of the subtleties related to the term “proving security”. We also present a simplified protocol, and we explain the role it plays in proving the security of the standard Bennett-Brassard protocol for quantum key distribution.
We construct a new quantum key distribution scheme and prove its security against the most general type of attacks and the most general type of noises allowed by quantum physics. The novel technique we use is reduction from a quantum scheme to a classical scheme. We first show that, rather surprisingly, the proof of security of our quantum key distribution in the error-free case can be reduced to that of a classical verification scheme. In other words, the quantum verification procedure employed by us has a classical interpretation. By proving the security of the classical scheme, the security of our quantum key distribution scheme in the error-free case follows immediately. The security against the most general types of noises (channel noises, storage errors and computational errors) is then proven by using fault-tolerant quantum computation.
Quantum key distribution allows two parties, traditionally known as Alice and Bob, to establish a secure random cryptographic key if, firstly, they have access to a quantum communication channel, and secondly, they can exchange classical public messages which can be monitored but not altered by an eavesdropper, Eve. Quantum key distribution provides perfect security because, unlike its classical counterpart, it relies on the laws of physics rather than on ensuring that successful eavesdropping would require excessive computational effort. However, security proofs of quantum key distribution are not trivial and are usually restricted in their applicability to specific protocols. In contrast, we present a general and conceptually simple proof which can be applied to a number of different protocols. It relies on the fact that a cryptographic procedure called privacy amplification is equally secure when an adversary's memory for data storage is quantum rather than classical.
Quantum key distribution protocols typically make use of a one-way quantum channel to distribute a shared secret string to two distant users. However, protocols exploiting a two-way quantum channel have been proposed as an alternative route to the same goal, with the potential advantage of outperforming one-way protocols. Here we provide a strategy to prove security for two-way quantum key distribution protocols against the most general quantum attack possible by an eavesdropper. We utilize an entropic uncertainty relation, and only a few assumptions need to be made about the devices used in the protocol. We also show that a two-way protocol can outperform comparable one-way protocols.
Transmitting message in secret is getting more and more important nowadays. In the classical world, the message we sent run the risk of being intercepted by an attacker. As a result, we have to encrypt the message, or send it using a private channel. However, if we transmit messages via such methods, there are still some ways to decipher the information. For example, a powerful computer can be used to decrypt the message or try to steal the message from the private channel. In quantum cryptography, entanglement can be used as a secure channel to transmit information with absolute secrecy. From this perspective, quantum entanglement pairs are equivalent to a quantum private key. However, like the classical key distribution problem, the entanglement has to be shared before it can be used. In this paper, we propose a protocol that can be used to distribute such entanglement pairs securely, so they can be subsequently used to transmit messages with perfect security. The security of this protocol is based on the laws of nature, instead of unproven mathematical hard problems.
Standard quantum key distribution protocols are provably secure against eavesdropping attacks, if quantum theory is correct. It is theoretically interesting to know if we need to assume the validity of quantum theory to prove the security of quantum key distribution, or whether its security can be based on other physical principles. The question would also be of practical interest if quantum mechanics were ever to fail in some regime, because a scientifically and technologically advanced eavesdropper could perhaps use postquantum physics to extract information from quantum communications without necessarily causing the quantum state disturbances on which existing security proofs rely. Here we describe a key distribution scheme provably secure against general attacks by a postquantum eavesdropper limited only by the impossibility of superluminal signaling. Its security stems from violation of a Bell inequality.