Eavesdropping on the `ping-pong' quantum communication protocol freely in a noise channel

Abstract

We introduce an attack scheme for eavesdropping the ping-pong quantum communication protocol proposed by Bostr$\ddot{o}$m and Felbinger [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{89}, 187902 (2002)] freely in a noise channel. The vicious eavesdropper, Eve, intercepts and measures the travel photon transmitted between the sender and the receiver. Then she replaces the quantum signal with a multi-photon signal in a same state, and measures the photons return with the measuring basis with which Eve prepares the fake signal except for one photon. This attack increase neither the quantum channel losses nor the error rate in the sampling instances for eavesdropping check. It works for eavesdropping the secret message transmitted with the ping-pong protocol. Finally, we propose a way for improving the security of the ping-pong protocol.