Authentication of Quantum Messages: Difference between revisions

Quantum authentication allows the exchange of quantum messages between two parties over a insecure quantum channel with the guarantee that the received quantum information is the same as the initially sent quantum message. Imagine a person sends some quantum information to another person over an insecure channel, where a dishonest party has access to the channel. How can it be guaranteed that in the end the receiver has the same quantum information and not something modified or replaced by the dishonest party? Schemes for authentication of quantum channels/quantum states/quantum messages are families of keyed encoding and decoding maps that provide this guarantee to the users of a quantum communication line/ channel. The sender is called the suppliant (prover) and the receiver is called the authenticator. The quantum message is encoded using a quantum error correction code. Since using only one particular quantum error correction code would enable a third party to introduce an error, which is not detectable by this particular code, it is necessary to choose a random quantum error correction code from a set of codes. <br/> <br/>Note that, it is different from the functionality of [[Quantum Digital Signature|digital signatures]], a multi-party (more than two) protocol, which comes with additional properties (non-repudiation, unforgeability and transferability). Authenticating quantum states is possible, but signing quantum states is impossible, as concluded in [[Authentication of Quantum Messages#References|(1)]].  

*[[Naive approach using Quantum Teleportation]]

*Any scheme, which authenticates quantum messages must also encrypt them [[Authentication of Quantum Messages#References|(1)]]. This is inherently different to the classical scenario, where encryption and authentication are two independent procedures.

*'''Definition: Quantum Authentication Scheme (QAS)''' <br/>A quantum authentication scheme (QAS) consists of a suppliant <math>\mathcal{S}</math>, an authenticator <math>\mathcal{A}</math> and a set of classical private keys <math>K</math>. <math>\mathcal{S}</math> and <math>\mathcal{A}</math> are each polynomial time quantum algorithms. The following is fullfilled:

# <math>\mathcal{S}</math> takes as input a <math>m</math>-qubit message system <math>M</math> and a key <math>k\in K</math> and outputs a transmitted system <math>T</math> of <math>m + t</math> qubits.

*'''Definition: Security of a QAS''' <br/>For non-interactive protocols, a QAS is secure with error <math>\epsilon</math> if it is complete for all states <math>|\psi\rangle</math> and has a soundness error <math>\epsilon</math> for all states <math>|\psi\rangle</math>. These two conditions are met if:

#''Completeness:'' A QAS is complete for a specific quantum state <math>|\psi\rangle</math> if <math>\forall k\in K: A_k(S_k(|\psi\rangle \langle\psi|)=|\psi\rangle \langle\psi| \otimes |\mathrm{ACC}\rangle \langle \mathrm{ACC}|.</math> <br/>This means if no adversary has acted on the encoded quantum message <math>|\psi\rangle</math>, the quantum information received by <math>\mathcal{A}</math> is the same initially sent by <math>\mathcal{S}</math> and the single qubit <math>V</math> is in state <math>|\mathrm{ACC}\rangle \langle \mathrm{ACC}|</math>. To this end, we assume that the channel between <math>\mathcal{S}</math> and <math>\mathcal{A}</math> is noiseless if no adversary intervention appeared.

#''Soundness:'' For all super-operators <math>\mathcal{O}</math>, let <math>\rho_\text{auth}</math> be the state output by <math>\mathcal{A}</math> when the adversary’s intervention is characterized by <math>\mathcal{O}</math>, that is: <math display=block>\rho_\text{auth}=\mathbf{E}_k\left[ \mathcal{A}_k\left( \mathcal{O}(\mathcal{S}(|\psi\rangle \langle\psi |)) \right) \right] = \frac{1}{|K|}\sum_k \mathcal{A}_k\left( \mathcal{O}(\mathcal{S}_k(|\psi\rangle \langle\psi |)) \right),</math> <br/> where again we consider a specific input state <math>|\psi\rangle</math>. Here, <math>\mathbf{E}_k</math> means the expectation when <math>k</math> is chosen uniformly at random from <math>K.</math> The QAS then has a soundness error <math>\epsilon</math> for <math>|\psi\rangle</math> if <math display=block>\mathrm{Tr}\left( P_1^{|\psi\rangle}\rho_\text{auth} \right)\geq 1-\epsilon,</math> </br>where <math>P_1^{|\psi\rangle}</math> is the projector <math display=block>P_1^{|\psi\rangle} = |\psi\rangle \langle\psi | \otimes I_V + I_M \otimes |\mathrm{REJ}\rangle \langle \mathrm{REJ}| - |\psi\rangle \langle \psi| \otimes |\mathrm{REJ}\rangle \langle \mathrm{REJ}|.</math>

#[https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0205128.pdf| Barnum et al. (2002).] First protocol on authentication of quantum messages. It is also used later for verification of quantum computation in [[Interactive Proofs for Quantum Computation]]. Protocol file for this article is given as the [[Polynomial Code based Quantum Authentication]]