978 research outputs found
Quantum authentication and encryption with key recycling
We propose an information-theoretically secure encryption scheme for classical messages with quantum ciphertexts that offers detection of eavesdropping attacks, and re-usability of the key in case no eavesdropping took place: the entire key can be securely re-used for encrypting new messages as long as no attack is detected. This is known to be impossible for fully classical schemes, where there is no way to detect plain eavesdropping attacks. This particular application of quantum techniques to cryptography was originally proposed by Bennett, Brassard and Breidbart in 1982, even before proposing quantum-key-distribution, and a simple candidate scheme was suggested but no rigorous security analysis was given. The idea was picked up again in 2005, when Damgård, Pedersen and Salvail suggested a new scheme for the same task, but now with a rigorous security analysis. However, their scheme is much more demanding in terms of quantum capabilities: it requires the users to have a quantum computer. In contrast, and like the original scheme by Bennett et al., our new scheme requires from the honest users merely to prepare and measure single BB84 qubits. As such, we not only show the first provably-secure scheme that is within reach of current technology, but we also confirm Bennett et al.’s original intuition that a scheme in the spirit of their original construction is indeed secure
How to reuse a one-time pad and other notes on authentication, encryption and protection of quantum information
Quantum information is a valuable resource which can be encrypted in order to
protect it. We consider the size of the one-time pad that is needed to protect
quantum information in a number of cases. The situation is dramatically
different from the classical case: we prove that one can recycle the one-time
pad without compromising security. The protocol for recycling relies on
detecting whether eavesdropping has occurred, and further relies on the fact
that information contained in the encrypted quantum state cannot be fully
accessed. We prove the security of recycling rates when authentication of
quantum states is accepted, and when it is rejected. We note that recycling
schemes respect a general law of cryptography which we prove relating the size
of private keys, sent qubits, and encrypted messages. We discuss applications
for encryption of quantum information in light of the resources needed for
teleportation. Potential uses include the protection of resources such as
entanglement and the memory of quantum computers. We also introduce another
application: encrypted secret sharing and find that one can even reuse the
private key that is used to encrypt a classical message. In a number of cases,
one finds that the amount of private key needed for authentication or
protection is smaller than in the general case.Comment: 13 pages, improved rate of recycling proved in the case of rejection
of authenticatio
Block encryption of quantum messages
In modern cryptography, block encryption is a fundamental cryptographic
primitive. However, it is impossible for block encryption to achieve the same
security as one-time pad. Quantum mechanics has changed the modern
cryptography, and lots of researches have shown that quantum cryptography can
outperform the limitation of traditional cryptography.
This article proposes a new constructive mode for private quantum encryption,
named , which is a very simple method to construct quantum
encryption from classical primitive. Based on mode, we
construct a quantum block encryption (QBE) scheme from pseudorandom functions.
If the pseudorandom functions are standard secure, our scheme is
indistinguishable encryption under chosen plaintext attack. If the pseudorandom
functions are permutation on the key space, our scheme can achieve perfect
security. In our scheme, the key can be reused and the randomness cannot, so a
-bit key can be used in an exponential number of encryptions, where the
randomness will be refreshed in each time of encryption. Thus -bit key can
perfectly encrypt qubits, and the perfect secrecy would not be broken
if the -bit key is reused for only exponential times.
Comparing with quantum one-time pad (QOTP), our scheme can be the same secure
as QOTP, and the secret key can be reused (no matter whether the eavesdropping
exists or not). Thus, the limitation of perfectly secure encryption (Shannon's
theory) is broken in the quantum setting. Moreover, our scheme can be viewed as
a positive answer to the open problem in quantum cryptography "how to
unconditionally reuse or recycle the whole key of private-key quantum
encryption". In order to physically implement the QBE scheme, we only need to
implement two kinds of single-qubit gates (Pauli gate and Hadamard gate),
so it is within reach of current quantum technology.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure. Prior version appears in
eprint.iacr.org(iacr/2017/1247). This version adds some analysis about
multiple-message encryption, and modifies lots of contents. There are no
changes about the fundamental result
Quantum authentication with key recycling
We show that a family of quantum authentication protocols introduced in
[Barnum et al., FOCS 2002] can be used to construct a secure quantum channel
and additionally recycle all of the secret key if the message is successfully
authenticated, and recycle part of the key if tampering is detected. We give a
full security proof that constructs the secure channel given only insecure
noisy channels and a shared secret key. We also prove that the number of
recycled key bits is optimal for this family of protocols, i.e., there exists
an adversarial strategy to obtain all non-recycled bits. Previous works
recycled less key and only gave partial security proofs, since they did not
consider all possible distinguishers (environments) that may be used to
distinguish the real setting from the ideal secure quantum channel and secret
key resource.Comment: 38+17 pages, 13 figures. v2: constructed ideal secure channel and
secret key resource have been slightly redefined; also added a proof in the
appendix for quantum authentication without key recycling that has better
parameters and only requires weak purity testing code
Unforgeable Quantum Encryption
We study the problem of encrypting and authenticating quantum data in the
presence of adversaries making adaptive chosen plaintext and chosen ciphertext
queries. Classically, security games use string copying and comparison to
detect adversarial cheating in such scenarios. Quantumly, this approach would
violate no-cloning. We develop new techniques to overcome this problem: we use
entanglement to detect cheating, and rely on recent results for characterizing
quantum encryption schemes. We give definitions for (i.) ciphertext
unforgeability , (ii.) indistinguishability under adaptive chosen-ciphertext
attack, and (iii.) authenticated encryption. The restriction of each definition
to the classical setting is at least as strong as the corresponding classical
notion: (i) implies INT-CTXT, (ii) implies IND-CCA2, and (iii) implies AE. All
of our new notions also imply QIND-CPA privacy. Combining one-time
authentication and classical pseudorandomness, we construct schemes for each of
these new quantum security notions, and provide several separation examples.
Along the way, we also give a new definition of one-time quantum authentication
which, unlike all previous approaches, authenticates ciphertexts rather than
plaintexts.Comment: 22+2 pages, 1 figure. v3: error in the definition of QIND-CCA2 fixed,
some proofs related to QIND-CCA2 clarifie
Quantum asymmetric cryptography with symmetric keys
Based on quantum encryption, we present a new idea for quantum public-key
cryptography (QPKC) and construct a whole theoretical framework of a QPKC
system. We show that the quantum-mechanical nature renders it feasible and
reasonable to use symmetric keys in such a scheme, which is quite different
from that in conventional public-key cryptography. The security of our scheme
is analyzed and some features are discussed. Furthermore, the state-estimation
attack to a prior QPKC scheme is demonstrated.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, Revtex
Quantum ciphertext authentication and key recycling with the trap code
We investigate quantum authentication schemes constructed from quantum error-correcting codes. We show that if the code has a property called purity testing, then the resulting authentication scheme guarantees the integrity of ciphertexts, not just plaintexts. On top of that, if the code is strong purity testing, the authentication scheme also allows the encryption key to be recycled, partially even if the authentication rejects. Such a strong notion of authentication is useful in a setting where multiple ciphertexts can be present simultaneously, such as in interactive or delegated quantum computation. With these settings in mind, we give an explicit code (based on the trap code) that is strong purity testing but, contrary to other known strong-purity-testing codes, allows for natural computation on ciphertexts
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