Analysis and Improvement of an Efficient Controlled Quantum Secure Direct Communication and Authentication Protocol

The controlled quantum secure direct communication (CQSDC) with authentication protocol based on four particle cluster states via quantum one-time pad and local unitary operations is cryptanalyzed. It is found that there are some serious security issues in this protocol. An eavesdropper (Eve) can eavesdrop on some information of the identity strings of the receiver and the controller without being detected by the selective-CNOT-operation (SCNO) attack. By the same attack, Eve can also steal some information of the secret message that the sender transmits. In addition, the receiver can take the same kind of attack to eavesdrop on some information of the secret message out of the control of the controller. This means that the requirements of CQSDC are not satisfied. At last, we improve the original CQSDC protocol to a secure one.     

Quantum Secure Direct Communication Protocol with Mutual Authentication Based on Single Photons and Bell States

Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) can transmit secret messages directly from one user to another without first establishing a shared secret key, which is different from quantum key distribution. In this paper, we propose a novel quantum secure direct communication protocol based on signal photons and Bell states. Before the execution of the proposed protocol, two participants Alice and Bob exchange their corresponding identity IDA and IDB through quantum key distribution and keep them secret, respectively. Then the message sender, Alice, encodes each secret message bit into two single photons (| 01〉or|10〉) or a Bell state , and composes an ordered secret message sequence. To insure the security of communication, Alice also prepares the decoy photons and inserts them into secret message sequence on the basis of the values of IDA and IDB. By the secret identity IDA and IDB, both sides of the communication can check eavesdropping and identify each other. The proposed protocol not only completes secure direct communication, but also realizes the mutual authentication. The security analysis of the proposed protocol is presented in the paper. The analysis results show that this protocol is secure against some common attacks, and no secret message leaks even if the messages are broken. Compared with the two-way QSDC protocols, the presented protocol is a one-way quantum communication protocol which has the immunity to Trojan horse attack. Furthermore, our proposed protocol can be realized without quantum memory.     

A Novel Quantum Stegonagraphy Based on Brown States

In this paper, a novel quantum steganography protocol based on Brown entangled states is proposed. The new protocol adopts the CNOT operation to achieve the transmission of secret information by the best use of the characteristics of entangled states. Comparing with the previous quantum steganography algorithms, the new protocol focuses on its anti-noise capability for the phase-flip noise, which proved its good security resisting on quantum noise. Furthermore, the covert communication of secret information in the quantum secure direct communication channel would not affect the normal information transmission process due to the new protocol’s good imperceptibility. If the number of Brown states transmitted in carrier protocol is many enough, the imperceptibility of the secret channel can be further enhanced. In aspect of capacity, the new protocol can further expand its capacity by combining with other quantum steganography protocols. Due to that the proposed protocol does not require the participation of the classic channel when it implements the transmission of secret information, any additional information leakage will not be caused for the new algorithm with good security. The detailed theoretical analysis proves that the new protocol can own good performance on imperceptibility, capacity and security.     

Controlled Cyclic Remote State Preparation of Arbitrary Qubit States

Quantum secure communications could securely transmit quantum information by using quantum resource. Recently, novel applications such as bidirectional and asymmetric quantum protocols have been developed. In this paper, we propose a new method for generating entanglement which is highly useful for multiparty quantum communications such as teleportation and Remote State Preparation (RSP). As one of its applications, we propose a new type of quantum secure communications, i.e. cyclic RSP protocols. Starting from a four-party controlled cyclic RSP protocol of one-qubit states, we show that this cyclic protocol can be generalized to a multiparty controlled cyclic RSP protocol for preparation of arbitrary qubit states. We point out that previous bidirectional and asymmetric protocols can be regarded as a simpler form of our cyclic RSP protocols.