4,464 research outputs found
Flipping quantum coins
Coin flipping is a cryptographic primitive in which two distrustful parties
wish to generate a random bit in order to choose between two alternatives. This
task is impossible to realize when it relies solely on the asynchronous
exchange of classical bits: one dishonest player has complete control over the
final outcome. It is only when coin flipping is supplemented with quantum
communication that this problem can be alleviated, although partial bias
remains. Unfortunately, practical systems are subject to loss of quantum data,
which restores complete or nearly complete bias in previous protocols. We
report herein on the first implementation of a quantum coin-flipping protocol
that is impervious to loss. Moreover, in the presence of unavoidable
experimental noise, we propose to use this protocol sequentially to implement
many coin flips, which guarantees that a cheater unwillingly reveals
asymptotically, through an increased error rate, how many outcomes have been
fixed. Hence, we demonstrate for the first time the possibility of flipping
coins in a realistic setting. Flipping quantum coins thereby joins quantum key
distribution as one of the few currently practical applications of quantum
communication. We anticipate our findings to be useful for various
cryptographic protocols and other applications, such as an online casino, in
which a possibly unlimited number of coin flips has to be performed and where
each player is free to decide at any time whether to continue playing or not.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figure
Fair Loss-Tolerant Quantum Coin Flipping
Coin flipping is a cryptographic primitive in which two spatially separated
players, who in principle do not trust each other, wish to establish a common
random bit. If we limit ourselves to classical communication, this task
requires either assumptions on the computational power of the players or it
requires them to send messages to each other with sufficient simultaneity to
force their complete independence. Without such assumptions, all classical
protocols are so that one dishonest player has complete control over the
outcome. If we use quantum communication, on the other hand, protocols have
been introduced that limit the maximal bias that dishonest players can produce.
However, those protocols would be very difficult to implement in practice
because they are susceptible to realistic losses on the quantum channel between
the players or in their quantum memory and measurement apparatus. In this
paper, we introduce a novel quantum protocol and we prove that it is completely
impervious to loss. The protocol is fair in the sense that either player has
the same probability of success in cheating attempts at biasing the outcome of
the coin flip. We also give explicit and optimal cheating strategies for both
players.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure; various minor typos corrected in version
Oblivious Transfer based on Key Exchange
Key-exchange protocols have been overlooked as a possible means for
implementing oblivious transfer (OT). In this paper we present a protocol for
mutual exchange of secrets, 1-out-of-2 OT and coin flipping similar to
Diffie-Hellman protocol using the idea of obliviously exchanging encryption
keys. Since, Diffie-Hellman scheme is widely used, our protocol may provide a
useful alternative to the conventional methods for implementation of oblivious
transfer and a useful primitive in building larger cryptographic schemes.Comment: 10 page
On the impossibility of coin-flipping in generalized probabilistic theories via discretizations of semi-infinite programs
Coin-flipping is a fundamental cryptographic task where a spatially separated
Alice and Bob wish to generate a fair coin-flip over a communication channel.
It is known that ideal coin-flipping is impossible in both classical and
quantum theory. In this work, we give a short proof that it is also impossible
in generalized probabilistic theories under the Generalized No-Restriction
Hypothesis. Our proof relies crucially on a formulation of cheating strategies
as semi-infinite programs, i.e., cone programs with infinitely many
constraints. This introduces a new formalism which may be of independent
interest to the quantum community
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