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Circular mediated semi-quantum key distribution

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Abstract

Mediated semi-quantum key distribution (M-SQKD) allows two “semi-quantum” or “classical” users to establish a secret key with the help of a third party (TP), in which TP has full quantum power and possibly adversarial. It is the basis of the multi-party semi-quantum cryptography protocol for securing the private data of classical users. In this work, we propose a M-SQKD protocol based on circular transport structure and prove the protocol is unconditional security. Even in the worst case (i.e., TP is untrusted), the protocol’s noise tolerance is also close to the BB84 protocol. The results show that our protocol can reach the similar level of security as the full quantum protocol. Besides, due to the scalability of the circular transport structure, our protocol is easily extended to multi-party scenarios, which offers an approach to realizing multiple “classical” users’ key distribution. Therefore, it can be used to protect the private data of multiple classical users and may have potential application scenarios in the future.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their significant comments and suggestions to enhance the quality of this paper. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China No. 62271070, and the BUPT Excellent Ph.D. Students Foundation No. CX2021117. The Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Cryptography of Zhejiang Province No. ZCL21006.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing University of Posts Telecommunications, Beijing, 100876, China

    Chong-Qiang Ye & Yanyan Hou

  2. Information Security Center, State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, 100876, China

    Jian Li & Xiu-Bo Chen

  3. The Key Laboratory of Cryptography of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, 311121, China

    Jian Li

  4. Department of Sciences and Informatics, Muroran Institute of Technology, Muroran, 050-8585, Japan

    Mianxiong Dong & Kaoru Ota

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  1. Chong-Qiang Ye
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Correspondence to Jian Li.

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Ye, CQ., Li, J., Chen, XB. et al. Circular mediated semi-quantum key distribution. Quantum Inf Process 22, 170 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-023-03915-4

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