Orthogonal-state-based protocols of quantum key agreement

Two orthogonal-state-based protocols of quantum key agreement (QKA) are proposed. The first protocol of QKA proposed here is designed for two-party QKA, whereas the second protocol is designed for multi-party QKA. Security of these orthogonal-state-based protocols arise from monogamy of entanglement. This is in contrast to the existing protocols of QKA where security arises from the use of non-orthogonal state (non-commutativity principle). Further, it is shown that all the quantum systems that are useful for implementation of quantum dialogue and most of the protocols of secure direct quantum communication can be modified to implement protocols of QKA.Comment: 9 pages, no figur

A security proof of quantum cryptography based entirely on entanglement purification

We give a proof that entanglement purification, even with noisy apparatus, is sufficient to disentangle an eavesdropper (Eve) from the communication channel. In the security regime, the purification process factorises the overall initial state into a tensor-product state of Alice and Bob, on one side, and Eve on the other side, thus establishing a completely private, albeit noisy, quantum communication channel between Alice and Bob. The security regime is found to coincide for all practical purposes with the purification regime of a two-way recurrence protocol. This makes two-way entanglement purification protocols, which constitute an important element in the quantum repeater, an efficient tool for secure long-distance quantum cryptography.Comment: Follow-up paper to quant-ph/0108060, submitted to PRA; 24 pages, revex

スタンス分類における領域知識の活用に関する研究

Tohoku University乾健太郎課

Entangled cloud storage

Entangled cloud storage (Aspnes et al., ESORICS 2004) enables a set of clients to “entangle” their files into a single clew to be stored by a (potentially malicious) cloud provider. The entanglement makes it impossible to modify or delete significant part of the clew without affecting all files encoded in the clew. A clew keeps the files in it private but still lets each client recover his own data by interacting with the cloud provider; no cooperation from other clients is needed. At the same time, the cloud provider is discouraged from altering or overwriting any significant part of the clew as this will imply that none of the clients can recover their files. We put forward the first simulation-based security definition for entangled cloud storage, in the framework of universal composability (Canetti, 2001). We then construct a protocol satisfying our security definition, relying on an entangled encoding scheme based on privacy-preserving polynomial interpolation; entangled encodings were originally proposed by Aspnes et al. as useful tools for the purpose of data entanglement. As a contribution of independent interest we revisit the security notions for entangled encodings, putting forward stronger definitions than previous work (that for instance did not consider collusion between clients and the cloud provider). Protocols for entangled cloud storage find application in the cloud setting, where clients store their files on a remote server and need to be ensured that the cloud provider will not modify or delete their data illegitimately. Current solutions, e.g., based on Provable Data Possession and Proof of Retrievability, require the server to be challenged regularly to provide evidence that the clients’ files are stored at a given time. Entangled cloud storage provides an alternative approach where any single client operates implicitly on behalf of all others, i.e., as long as one client's files are intact, the entire remote database continues to be safe and unblemishe

Quantum-secured blockchain

Blockchain is a distributed database which is cryptographically protected against malicious modifications. While promising for a wide range of applications, current blockchain platforms rely on digital signatures, which are vulnerable to attacks by means of quantum computers. The same, albeit to a lesser extent, applies to cryptographic hash functions that are used in preparing new blocks, so parties with access to quantum computation would have unfair advantage in procuring mining rewards. Here we propose a possible solution to the quantum era blockchain challenge and report an experimental realization of a quantum-safe blockchain platform that utilizes quantum key distribution across an urban fiber network for information-theoretically secure authentication. These results address important questions about realizability and scalability of quantum-safe blockchains for commercial and governmental applications.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures; published versio