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Information theoretic security by the laws of classical physics
It has been shown recently that the use of two pairs of resistors with
enhanced Johnson-noise and a Kirchhoff-loop-i.e., a Kirchhoff-Law-Johnson-Noise
(KLJN) protocol-for secure key distribution leads to information theoretic
security levels superior to those of a quantum key distribution, including a
natural immunity against a man-in-the-middle attack. This issue is becoming
particularly timely because of the recent full cracks of practical quantum
communicators, as shown in numerous peer-reviewed publications. This
presentation first briefly surveys the KLJN system and then discusses related,
essential questions such as: what are perfect and imperfect security
characteristics of key distribution, and how can these two types of securities
be unconditional (or information theoretical)? Finally the presentation
contains a live demonstration.Comment: Featured in MIT Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428202/quantum-cryptography-outperformed-by-classical/
; Plenary talk at the 5th IEEE Workshop on Soft Computing Applications,
August 22-24, 2012, (SOFA 2012). Typos correcte
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 mechanics is about quantum information
I argue that quantum mechanics is fundamentally a theory about the
representation and manipulation of information, not a theory about the
mechanics of nonclassical waves or particles. The notion of quantum information
is to be understood as a new physical primitive -- just as, following
Einstein's special theory of relativity, a field is no longer regarded as the
physical manifestation of vibrations in a mechanical medium, but recognized as
a new physical primitive in its own right.Comment: 17 pages, forthcoming in Foundations of Physics Festschrift issue for
James Cushing. Revised version: some paragraphs have been added to the final
section clarifying the argument, and various minor clarifying remarks have
been added throughout the tex
The Case for Quantum Key Distribution
Quantum key distribution (QKD) promises secure key agreement by using quantum
mechanical systems. We argue that QKD will be an important part of future
cryptographic infrastructures. It can provide long-term confidentiality for
encrypted information without reliance on computational assumptions. Although
QKD still requires authentication to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, it can
make use of either information-theoretically secure symmetric key
authentication or computationally secure public key authentication: even when
using public key authentication, we argue that QKD still offers stronger
security than classical key agreement.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure; to appear in proceedings of QuantumComm 2009
Workshop on Quantum and Classical Information Security; version 2 minor
content revision
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