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