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A new post-quantum voting protocol based on physical laws

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Abstract

The post-quantum security of electronic voting protocols such as lattice-based ones are based on the assumption of certain difficult computational problems, which cannot be solved by classical computers and have also not been solved by effective quantum algorithms until now. However, these voting protocols are still at risk of compromise with the development of quantum computing, and we call them passive defense voting protocols. By making use of the encrypted three-pass protocol configured by taking physical limits of quantum computing into account and the message authentication code with information theory security, we propose a new post-quantum voting (NPQV) protocol. The proposed protocol exhibits the following advantages: (1) The post-quantum security of NPQV protocol depends on the physical limits that are inherent to quantum computers, so NPQV remains secure with the development of quantum computing and thus we call it active defense voting protocol. NPQV is the first voting protocol with active defense capability. (2) NPQV protocol is suitable for voting with numerous candidates and voters and accommodates the situation in which multiple voters vote simultaneously. (3) NPQV satisfies all the seven security requirements for an electronic voting protocol, i.e. privacy, verifiability, completeness, robustness, eligibility, unreusability and fairness. Moreover, it remains secure under internal and external attacks.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61672517), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Key Program, Grant No. 61732021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Information Security, Institute of Information Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, People’s Republic of China

    Zeyu Sun, Wenhua Gao, Hua Dong & Li Yang

  2. School of Cyber Security, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Zeyu Sun, Wenhua Gao, Hua Dong & Li Yang

  3. Institute of Information Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Zeyu Sun, Wenhua Gao, Hua Dong & Li Yang

  4. Department of cryptography and Technology, Beijing Electronic Science and Technology Institute, Beijing, 100070, People’s Republic of China

    Huiqin Xie

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  1. Zeyu Sun
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  2. Wenhua Gao
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Correspondence to Li Yang.

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Sun, Z., Gao, W., Dong, H. et al. A new post-quantum voting protocol based on physical laws. Quantum Inf Process 21, 289 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-022-03628-0

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