Quantum Cryptography 1
Quantum Cryptography 1
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1. Cryptography - an Overview
PKC systems exploit the fact that certain mathematical operations are
easier to do in one direction than the other. The systems avoid the key
distribution problem, but unfortunately their security depends on
unproven mathematical assumptions about the intrinsic difficulty of
certain operations. The most popular public key cryptosystem, RSA
(Rivest-Shamin-Adleman), gets its security from the difficulty of
factoring large numbers [2]. This means that if ever mathematicians or
computer scientists come up with fast and clever procedures for
factoring large numbers, then the whole privacy and discretion of
widespread cryptosystems could vanish overnight. Indeed, recent work
inquantum computation suggests that in principle quantum
computers might factorize huge integers in practical times, which could
jeopardize the secrecy of many modern cryptography techniques [3].
2. Classical Cryptography
The widely used RSA algorithm is one example of PKC. Anyone wanting
to receive a message publishes a key, which contains two numbers. A
sender converts a message into a series of digits, and performs a
simple mathematical calculation on the series using the publicly
available numbers. Messages are deciphered by the recipient by
performing another operation, known only to him [5]. In principle, an
eavesdropper could deduce the decryption method by factoring one of
the published numbers, but this is chosen to typically exceed 100 digits
and to be the product of only two largeprime numbers, so that there is
no known way to accomplish this factorization in a practical time.
One proposed method for solving this key distribution problem is the
appointment of a central key distribution server. Every potential
communicating party registers with the server and establishes a secret
key. The server then relays secure communications between users, but
the server itself is vulnerable to attack. Another method is a protocol
for agreeing on a secret key based on publicly exchanged large prime
numbers, as in the Diffie Hellman key exchange. Its security is based
on the assumed difficulty of finding the power of a base that will
generate a specified remainder when divided by a very large prime
number, but this suffers from the uncertainty that such problems will
remain intractable. Quantum encryption, which will be discussed later,
provides a way of agreeing on a secret key without making this
assumption.
Polarization by a filter: Unpolarized light enters a vertically aligned filter, which absorbs some of the
light and polarizes the remainder in the vertical direction. A second filter tilted at some angle θ absorbs
some of the polarized light and transmits the rest, giving it a new polarization.
(From "Quantum Cryptography" by Charles H. Bennett, Gilles Brassard, and Artur K. Ekert,
http://www.cyberbeach.net/~jdwyer/quantum_crypto/quantum2.htm.)
A pair of orthogonal (perpendicular) polarization states used to
describe the polarization of photons, such as horizontal/vertical, is
referred to as a basis. A pair of bases are said to be conjugate bases if
the measurement of the polarization in the first basis completely
randomizes the measurement in the second basis [7], as in the above
example with θ = 45 deg. It is a fundamental consequence of the
Heisenberg uncerty principle that such conjugate pairs of states must
exist for a quantum system.
Alice and Bob are equipped with two polarizers each, one aligned with
the rectilinear 0-deg/90-deg (or +) basis that will emit - or | polarized
photons and one aligned with the diagonal 45-deg/135-deg (or X)
basis that will emit \ or / polarized photons. Alice and Bob can
communicate via a quantum channel over which Alice can send
photons, and a public channel over which they can discuss results. An
eavesdropper Eve is assumed to have unlimited computing power and
access to both these channels, though she cannot alter messages on
the public channel (see below for discussion of this).
To eliminate the false measurements from the sequence, Alice and Bob
begin a public discussion after the entire sequence of photons has been
sent. Bob tells Alice which basis he used to measure each photon, and
Alice tells him whether or not it was the correct one. Neither Alice nor
Bob announces the actual measurements, only the bases in which they
were made. They discard all data for which their polarizers didn't
match, leaving (in theory) two perfectly matching strings. They can
then convert these into bit strings by agreeing on which photon
directions should be 0 and which should be 1.
This provides a way for Alice and Bob to arrive at a shared key without
publicly announcing any of the bits. If an eavesdropper Eve tries to
gain information about the key by intercepting the photons as they are
transmitted from Alice to Bob, measuring their polarization, and then
resending them so Bob does receive a message, then since Eve, like
Bob, has no idea which basis Alice uses to transmit each photon, she
too must choose bases at random for her measurements. If she
chooses the correct basis, and then sends Bob a photon matching the
one she measures, all is well. However, if she chooses the wrong basis,
she will then see a photon in one of the two directions she is
measuring, and send it to Bob. If Bob's basis matches Alice's (and thus
is different from Eve's), he is equally likely to measure either direction
for the photon. However, if Eve had not interfered, he would have been
guaranteed the same measurement as Alice. In fact, in this
intercept/resend scenario, Eve will corrupt 25 percent of the bits [7].
So if Alice and Bob publicly compare some of the bits in their key that
should have been correctly measured and find no discrepancies, they
can conclude that Eve has learned nothing about the remaining bits,
which can be used as the secret key. Alternatively, Alice and Bob can
agree publicly on a random subset of their bits, and compare the
parities. The parities will differ in 50 percent of the cases if the bits
have been intercepted. By doing 20 parity checks, Alice and Bob can
reduce the probability of an eavesdropper remaining undetected to less
than one in a million [8]. It is of course crucial that they do not discuss
the orientation of the polarization filters until after the message has
been sent, or Eve could use this to intercept and resend the photons
correctly.
For each photon, Bob chooses at random the type of measurement: either the rectilinear type (+) or the
diagonal type (X).
After the transmission, Bob tells Alice the measurement types he used (but not his results) and Alice tells
him which were correct for the photons she sent. This exchange may be overheard.
Alice and Bob keep all cases in which Bob should have measured the correct polarization. These cases are
then translated into bits (1s and 0s) to define the key.
As a check, Alice and Bob choose some bits at random to reveal. If they agree, they can use the remaining
bits with assurance that they have not been intercepted. But if they find a substantial number of
discrepancies, it indicates unavoidable tampering due to eavesdropping, and they should start over to
transmit another key.
(From "Quantum Cryptography" by Charles H. Bennett, Gilles Brassard, and Artur K. Ekert,
http://www.cyberbeach.net/~jdwyer/quantum_crypto/quantum1.htm.)
Even if Eve does not practice interference of this kind, there are other
methods she can still attempt to use. Because of the difficulty of using
single photons for transmissions, most systems use small bursts
of coherent light instead. In theory, Eve might be able to split single
photons out of the burst, reducing its intensity but not affecting its
content. By observing these photons (if necessary, holding them
somehow until the correct basis for observation is announced) she
might gain information about the information transmitted from Alice to
Bob.
In the shorter term, the technology might help to protect the security
of satellite television broadcasts. In one such breach, a hacker known
as Captain Midnight interrupted a 1986 broadcast by HBO (the Home
Box Office company) and sent over half of the company's customers a
five-minute broadcast of a message complaining about the firm's new
subscription charges.
7 . Conclusion