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Quantum authenticated key distribution. (English) Zbl 1175.94114

Akl, Selim G. (ed.) et al., Unconventional computation. 6th international conference, UC 2007, Kingston, Canada, August 13–17, 2007. Proceedings. Berlin: Springer (ISBN 978-3-540-73553-3/pbk). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4618, 127-136 (2007).
Summary: Quantum key distribution algorithms use a quantum communication channel with quantum information and a classical communication channel for binary information. The classical channel, in all algorithms to date, was required to be authenticated. Moreover, S. J. Lomonaco jun. [“A talk on quantum cryptography or how Alice outwits Eve”, in: D. Joyner, Coding theory and cryptography. From enigma and Geheimschreiber to quantum theory. Proceedings of the conference on coding theory, cryptography, and number theory, Berlin: Springer. 144–174 (2000; Zbl 0983.81007)] claimed that authentication is not possible using only quantum means. This paper reverses this claim. We design an algorithm for quantum key distribution that does authentication by quantum means only. Although a classical channel is still used, there is no need for the channel to be authenticated. The algorithm relies on two protected public keys to authenticate the communication partner.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1124.68001].

MSC:

94A62 Authentication, digital signatures and secret sharing
81P68 Quantum computation

Citations:

Zbl 0983.81007
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