Enhanced secure key exchange systems based on the Johnson-noise scheme

We introduce seven new versions of the Kirchhoff-Law-Johnson-(like)-Noise (KLJN) classical physical secure key exchange scheme and a new transient protocol for practically-perfect security. While these practical improvements offer progressively enhanced security and/or speed for the non-ideal conditions, the fundamental physical laws providing the security remain the same. In the "intelligent" KLJN (iKLJN) scheme, Alice and Bob utilize the fact that they exactly know not only their own resistor value but also the stochastic time function of their own noise, which they generate before feeding it into the loop. In the "multiple" KLJN (MKLJN) system, Alice and Bob have publicly known identical sets of different resistors with a proper, publicly known truth table about the bit-interpretation of their combination. In the "keyed" KLJN (KKLJN) system, by using secure communication with a formerly shared key, Alice and Bob share a proper time-dependent truth table for the bit-interpretation of the resistor situation for each secure bit exchange step during generating the next key. The remaining four KLJN schemes are the combinations of the above protocols to synergically enhance the security properties. These are: the "intelligent-multiple" (iMKLJN), the "intelligent-keyed" (iKKLJN), the "keyed-multiple" (KMKLJN) and the "intelligent-keyed-multiple" (iKMKLJN) KLJN key exchange systems. Finally, we introduce a new transient-protocol offering practically-perfect security without privacy amplification, which is not needed at practical applications but it is shown for the sake of ongoing discussions.Comment: This version is accepted for publicatio

Quantum cryptography: key distribution and beyond

Uniquely among the sciences, quantum cryptography has driven both foundational research as well as practical real-life applications. We review the progress of quantum cryptography in the last decade, covering quantum key distribution and other applications.Comment: It's a review on quantum cryptography and it is not restricted to QK

Totally Secure Classical Communication Utilizing Johnson (-like) Noise and Kirchoff's Law

An absolutely secure, fast, inexpensive, robust, maintenance-free and low-power- consumption communication is proposed. The states of the information bit are represented by two resistance values. The sender and the receiver have such resistors available and they randomly select and connect one of them to the channel at the beginning of each clock period. The thermal noise voltage and current can be observed but Kirchoff's law provides only a second-order equation. A secure bit is communicated when the actual resistance values at the sender's side and the receiver's side differ. Then the second order equation yields the two resistance values but the eavesdropper is unable to determine the actual locations of the resistors and to find out the state of the sender's bit. The receiver knows that the sender has the inverse of his bit, similarly to quantum entanglement. The eavesdropper can decode the message if, for each bits, she inject current in the wire and measures the voltage change and the current changes in the two directions. However, in this way she gets discovered by the very first bit she decodes. Instead of thermal noise, proper external noise generators should be used when the communication is not aimed to be stealth.Comment: Physics Letters A, in press; Manuscript featured by Science, vol. 309, p. 2148 (2005, September 30

Security of practical private randomness generation

Measurements on entangled quantum systems necessarily yield outcomes that are intrinsically unpredictable if they violate a Bell inequality. This property can be used to generate certified randomness in a device-independent way, i.e., without making detailed assumptions about the internal working of the quantum devices used to generate the random numbers. Furthermore these numbers are also private, i.e., they appear random not only to the user, but also to any adversary that might possess a perfect description of the devices. Since this process requires a small initial random seed, one usually speaks of device-independent randomness expansion. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we point out that in most real, practical situations, where the concept of device-independence is used as a protection against unintentional flaws or failures of the quantum apparatuses, it is sufficient to show that the generated string is random with respect to an adversary that holds only classical-side information, i.e., proving randomness against quantum-side information is not necessary. Furthermore, the initial random seed does not need to be private with respect to the adversary, provided that it is generated in a way that is independent from the measured systems. The devices, though, will generate cryptographically-secure randomness that cannot be predicted by the adversary and thus one can, given access to free public randomness, talk about private randomness generation. The theoretical tools to quantify the generated randomness according to these criteria were already introduced in [S. Pironio et al, Nature 464, 1021 (2010)], but the final results were improperly formulated. The second aim of this paper is to correct this inaccurate formulation and therefore lay out a precise theoretical framework for practical device-independent randomness expansion.Comment: 18 pages. v3: important changes: the present version focuses on security against classical side-information and a discussion about the significance of these results has been added. v4: minor changes. v5: small typos correcte