Semi-quantum communication: Protocols for key agreement, controlled secure direct communication and dialogue

Semi-quantum protocols that allow some of the users to remain classical are proposed for a large class of problems associated with secure communication and secure multiparty computation. Specifically, first time semi-quantum protocols are proposed for key agreement, controlled deterministic secure communication and dialogue, and it is shown that the semi-quantum protocols for controlled deterministic secure communication and dialogue can be reduced to semi-quantum protocols for e-commerce and private comparison (socialist millionaire problem), respectively. Complementing with the earlier proposed semi-quantum schemes for key distribution, secret sharing and deterministic secure communication, set of schemes proposed here and subsequent discussions have established that almost every secure communication and computation tasks that can be performed using fully quantum protocols can also be performed in semi-quantum manner. Further, it addresses a fundamental question in context of a large number problems- how much quantumness is (how many quantum parties are) required to perform a specific secure communication task? Some of the proposed schemes are completely orthogonal-state-based, and thus, fundamentally different from the existing semi-quantum schemes that are conjugate-coding-based. Security, efficiency and applicability of the proposed schemes have been discussed with appropriate importance.Comment: 19 pages 1 figur

Quantum Privacy-Preserving Price E-Negotiation

Privacy-preserving price e-negotiation (3PEN) is an important topic of secure multi-party computation (SMC) in the electronic commerce field, and the key point of its security is to guarantee the privacy of seller's and buyer's prices. In this study, a novel and efficient quantum solution to the 3PEN problem is proposed, where the oracle operation and the qubit comparator are utilized to obtain the comparative results of buyer's and seller's prices, and then quantum counting is executed to summarize the total number of products which meets the trading conditions. Analysis shows that our solution not only guarantees the correctness and the privacy of 3PEN, but also has lower communication complexity than those classical ones.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Non-distributable key-sharing protocol with particular emphasis on the Internet of Things

Quantum key distribution (QKD) constitutes the most widespread family of information preservation techniques in the context of Quantum Cryptography. However, these techniques must deal with a series of technological challenges that prevent their efficient implementation, in space, as well as in exclusively terrestrial configurations. Moreover, the current smallsat constellations of Low Earth Orbit (LEO with an altitude of approx. 500 km) added to other satellites in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and geostationary orbits (GEO), plus a large amount of space debris present around the planet, have become a serious obstacle for Astronomy. In this work, a classic alternative to QKD is presented, also based on a symmetric key, but with low cost, and high efficiency, which dispenses with all the implementation problems present in the QKD protocols and does not require the use of satellites, and which we will call non-distributable key sharing (NDKS). Due to its low cost, simplicity of implementation, and high efficiency, NDKS is presented as an ideal solution to the problem of cybersecurity on the Internet of Things (IoT), in general, and IoT-fog-clouds, in particular

Security performance and protocol consideration in optical communication system with optical layer security enabled by optical coding techniques

With the fast development of communication systems, network security issues have more and more impact on daily life. It is essential to construct a high degree of optical layer security to resolve the security problem once and for all. Three different techniques which can provide optical layer security are introduced and compared. Optical chaos can be used for fast random number generation. Quantum cryptography is the most promising technique for key distribution. And the optical coding techniques can be deployed to encrypt the modulated signal in the optical layer. A mathematical equation has been derived from information theory to evaluate the information-theoretic security level of the wiretap channel in optical coding schemes. And the merits and limitation of two coherent optical coding schemes, temporal phase coding and spectral phase coding, have been analysed. The security scheme based on a reconfigurable optical coding device has been introduced, and the corresponding security protocol has been developed. By moving the encryption operation from the electronic layer to the optical layer, the modulated signals become opaque to the unauthorised users. Optical code distribution and authentication is the one of the major challenges for our proposed scheme. In our proposed protocol, both of the operations are covered and defined in detail. As a preliminary draft of the optical code security protocol, it could be a useful guidance for further research