Device-independent Cryptography Research Articles

Boosting device-independent cryptography with tripartite nonlocality

Device-independent (DI) protocols, such as DI conference key agreement (DICKA) and DI randomness expansion (DIRE), certify private randomness by observing nonlocal correlations when two or more parties test a Bell inequality. While most DI protocols are restricted to bipartite Bell tests, harnessing multipartite nonlocal correlations may lead to better performance. Here, we consider tripartite DICKA and DIRE protocols based on testing multipartite Bell inequalities, specifically: the Mermin-Ardehali-Belinskii-Klyshko (MABK) inequality, and the Holz and the Parity-CHSH inequalities introduced in the context of DICKA protocols. We evaluate the asymptotic performance of the DICKA (DIRE) protocols in terms of their conference key rate (net randomness generation rate), by deriving lower bounds on the conditional von Neumann entropy of one party's outcome and two parties' outcomes. For the Holz inequality, we prove a tight analytical lower bound on the one-outcome entropy and conjecture a tight lower bound on the two-outcome entropy. We additionally re-derive the analytical one-outcome entropy bound for the MABK inequality with a much simpler method and obtain a numerical lower bound on the two-outcome entropy for the Parity-CHSH inequality. Our simulations show that DICKA and DIRE protocols employing tripartite Bell inequalities can significantly outperform their bipartite counterparts. Moreover, we establish that genuine multipartite entanglement is not a precondition for multipartite DIRE while its necessity for DICKA remains an open question.

Advantages of Multicopy Nonlocality Distillation and Its Application to Minimizing Communication Complexity.

Nonlocal correlations are a central feature of quantum theory, and understanding why quantum theory has a limited amount of nonlocality is a fundamental problem. Since nonlocality also has technological applications, e.g., for device-independent cryptography, it is useful to understand it as a resource and, in particular, whether and how different types of nonlocality can be interconverted. Here we focus on nonlocality distillation which involves using several copies of a nonlocal resource to generate one with more nonlocality. We introduce several distillation schemes which distill an extended part of the set of nonlocal correlations including quantum correlations. Our schemes are based on a natural set of operational procedures known as wirings that can be applied regardless of the underlying theory. Some are sequential algorithms that repeatedly use a two-copy protocol, while others are genuine three-copy distillation protocols. In some regions we prove that genuine three-copy protocols are strictly better than two-copy protocols. By applying our new protocols we also increase the region in which nonlocal correlations are known to give rise to trivial communication complexity. This brings us closer to an understanding of the sets of nonlocal correlations that can be recovered from information-theoretic principles, which, in turn, enhances our understanding of what is special about quantum theory.

Error-free interconversion of nonlocal boxes

Understanding the structure of nonlocal correlations is important in many fields ranging from fundamental questions of physics to device-independent cryptography. We present a protocol that can convert extremal two-party--two-input nonlocal no-signaling boxes of any type into any other extremal two-party--two-input nonlocal no-signaling box perfectly. Our results are exact, and even though the number of required boxes cannot be determined in advance, their expected number is finite. Our protocol is adaptive and demonstrates for the first time the usefulness of using no-signaling boxes in different causal orders by the parties.

Computation in a general physical setting

The computational abilities of theories within the generalised probabilistic theory framework has been the subject of much recent study. Such investigations aim to gain an understanding of the possible connections between physical principles and computation. Moreover, comparing and contrasting the computational properties of quantum theory with other operationally-sensible theories could shed light on the strengths and limitations of quantum computation. This paper reviews and extends some of these results, deriving new bounds on the computational ability of theories satisfying n-local tomography, and theories in which states are represented as generalised superpositions. It moreover provides a refined version of the conjecture that a quantum computer can simulate the computation in any theory within a certain sub-class of generalised probabilistic theories with at most polynomial overhead. The paper ends by describing an important relation between this conjecture and delegated computation, similar to the relation between quantum non-locality and device-independent cryptography.

State-of-the-Art Survey of Quantum Cryptography

In today Internet era, confidential information transmitted over an insecure channel. With the significant development in the area of quantum computing, there is a need for unconditional security in confidential information. Quantum key distribution protocols are proven secure if all devices are perfect (in terms of technologies and proper protocol operations). The major challenges in quantum communication are secret key rate, distance, cost and size of QKD devices. The purpose of this survey article is to carry out a systematic review in the area of quantum cryptography by covering various aspects of non-deterministic quantum key distribution protocols, quantum secure direct communication, semi-quantum key distribution, secure multiparty communication protocol, post-quantum cryptography and device-independent cryptography techniques. In addition, we also discussed various experimental work carried out in the area of quantum cryptography, various attacks and challenges relative to the paradigm shift from classical cryptography to quantum cryptography. Quantum cryptography will become a future replacement of classical cryptography techniques after the development of the first physical quantum computer.

Device-independent quantum authorization based on the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt game

In the spirit of device-independent cryptography, we present a two-party quantum authorization primitive with non-locality as its fueling resource. Therein, users are attributed authorization levels granting them access to a private database accordingly. The authorization levels are encoded in the non-local resources distributed to the users, and subsequently confirmed by their ability to win CHSH games using such resources. We formalize the protocol, prove its security, and frame it in the device-independent setting employing the notion of CHSH self-testing via simulation. Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation using the Qiskit open-source framework.

Entropy Accumulation

We ask the question whether entropy accumulates, in the sense that the operationally relevant total uncertainty about an n-partite system A = (A_1, ldots A_n) corresponds to the sum of the entropies of its parts A_i. The Asymptotic Equipartition Property implies that this is indeed the case to first order in n—under the assumption that the parts A_i are identical and independent of each other. Here we show that entropy accumulation occurs more generally, i.e., without an independence assumption, provided one quantifies the uncertainty about the individual systems A_i by the von Neumann entropy of suitably chosen conditional states. The analysis of a large system can hence be reduced to the study of its parts. This is relevant for applications. In device-independent cryptography, for instance, the approach yields essentially optimal security bounds valid for general attacks, as shown by Arnon-Friedman et al. (SIAM J Comput 48(1):181–225, 2019).

Device-Independent Randomness Amplification and Privatization

Randomness is an essential resource in computer science. In most applications perfect, and sometimes private, randomness is needed, while it is not even clear that such a resource exists. It is well known that the tools of classical computer science do not allow us to create perfect and secret randomness from a single weak public source. Quantum physics, on the other hand, allows for such a process, even in the most paranoid cryptographic sense termed "quantum device-independent cryptography". In this work we propose and prove the security of a new device-independent protocol that takes any single public Santha-Vazirani source as input and creates a secret close to uniform string in the presence of a quantum adversary. Our work is the first to achieve randomness amplification with all the following properties: (1) amplification and "privatization" of a public Santha-Vazirani source with arbitrary bias (2) the use of a device with only two components (compared to polynomial number of components) (3) non-vanishing extraction rate and (4) maximal noise tolerance. In particular, this implies that our protocol is the first protocol that can possibly be implemented with reachable parameters. We are able to achieve these by combining three new tools: a particular family of Bell inequalities, a proof technique to lower bound entropy in the device-independent setting, and a special framework for quantum-proof multi-source extractors.

Maximal nonlocality from maximal entanglement and mutually unbiased bases, and self-testing of two-qutrit quantum systems

Bell inequalities are an important tool in device-independent quantum information processing because their violation can serve as a certificate of relevant quantum properties. Probably the best known example of a Bell inequality is due to Clauser, Horne, Shimony and Holt (CHSH), which is defined in the simplest scenario involving two dichotomic measurements and whose all key properties are well understood. There have been many attempts to generalise the CHSH Bell inequality to higher-dimensional quantum systems, however, for most of them the maximal quantum violation---the key quantity for most device-independent applications---remains unknown. On the other hand, the constructions for which the maximal quantum violation can be computed, do not preserve the natural property of the CHSH inequality, namely, that the maximal quantum violation is achieved by the maximally entangled state and measurements corresponding to mutually unbiased bases. In this work we propose a novel family of Bell inequalities which exhibit precisely these properties, and whose maximal quantum violation can be computed analytically. In the simplest scenario it recovers the CHSH Bell inequality. These inequalities involvedmeasurements settings, each havingdoutcomes for an arbitrary prime numberd≥3. We then show that in the three-outcome case our Bell inequality can be used to self-test the maximally entangled state of two-qutrits and three mutually unbiased bases at each site. Yet, we demonstrate that in the case of more outcomes, their maximal violation does not allow for self-testing in the standard sense, which motivates the definition of a new weak form of self-testing. The ability to certify high-dimensional MUBs makes these inequalities attractive from the device-independent cryptography point of view.

The relativistic causality versus no-signaling paradigm for multi-party correlations

The ubiquitous no-signaling constraints state that the probability distributions of outputs of any subset of parties in a Bell experiment are independent of remaining parties’ inputs. These constraints are considered to form ultimate limits for physical correlations and led to the fields of post-quantum cryptography, randomness generation besides identifying information-theoretic principles underlying quantum theory. Here we show that while these constraints are sufficient, they are not necessary to enforce relativistic causality in multi-party correlations, i.e., the rule that correlations do not allow casual loops. Depending on the space-time coordinates of the measurement events, causality only imposes a subset of no-signaling conditions. We first consider the n-party Bell experiment (n > 2) and identify all configurations where subsets of the constraints suffice. Secondly, we examine the implications for device-independent cryptography against an eavesdropper constrained only by relativity, detailing among other effects explicit attacks on well-known randomness amplification and key distribution protocols.

Practical device-independent quantum cryptography via entropy accumulation

Device-independent cryptography goes beyond conventional quantum cryptography by providing security that holds independently of the quality of the underlying physical devices. Device-independent protocols are based on the quantum phenomena of non-locality and the violation of Bell inequalities. This high level of security could so far only be established under conditions which are not achievable experimentally. Here we present a property of entropy, termed “entropy accumulation”, which asserts that the total amount of entropy of a large system is the sum of its parts. We use this property to prove the security of cryptographic protocols, including device-independent quantum key distribution, while achieving essentially optimal parameters. Recent experimental progress, which enabled loophole-free Bell tests, suggests that the achieved parameters are technologically accessible. Our work hence provides the theoretical groundwork for experimental demonstrations of device-independent cryptography.

Using complete measurement statistics for optimal device-independent randomness evaluation

The majority of recent works investigating the link between non-locality and randomness, e.g. in the context of device-independent cryptography, do so with respect to some specific Bell inequality, usually the CHSH inequality. However, the joint probabilities characterizing the measurement outcomes of a Bell test are richer than just the degree of violation of a single Bell inequality. In this work we show how to take this extra information into account in a systematic manner in order to optimally evaluate the randomness that can be certified from non-local correlations. We further show that taking into account the complete set of outcome probabilities is equivalent to optimizing over all possible Bell inequalities, thereby allowing us to determine the optimal Bell inequality for certifying the maximal amount of randomness from a given set of non-local correlations.