An Efficient Key Distribution Protocol Based on BB84

Parag K. Lala^1,

¹Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M University-Texarkana, Texarkana, USA

Cite this paper:
Parag K. Lala. An Efficient Key Distribution Protocol Based on BB84. American Journal of Computing Research Repository. 2014; 2(2):33-37. doi: 10.12691/ajcrr-2-2-2

Abstract

Private key cryptography suffers from a major weakness - it requires sharing of a secret key between two parties. An intruder can copy the secret key as it is being exchanged, thereby severely compromising the security of the system. Thus a private key cryptographic system depends entirely on secrecy of the key. Public key cryptography does not have a key distribution problem but its security relies on the fact that determining the factors of a number that is the product of two very large prime numbers is not computationally feasible. It has been shown that a quantum computer can solve the prime factors of very large numbers in polynomial time which would otherwise take millions of years. Public key cryptography will therefore become insecure if quantum computing becomes a reality. Quantum cryptography, originally presented in BB84 protocol, avoids all these issues by encrypting the shared key using a series of photons. In this paper a key distribution protocol based on the concepts of BB84 is proposed It provides an additional layer of security by sending the key data bits twice; during the second transmission the original key bits or their complements are randomly chosen for transmission. The sender informs the receiver about the orientation of the key bits during the second round of transmission only after the data has been sent out.

Keywords:
quantum key BB84 RSA one-time pad

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Vernam, G.S., “Cipher Printing Telegraph Systems for secret wire and radio telegraphic communications,” J. AIEE 45, pp. 109-115, 1926.
[2]	Diffie, W. and Hellman, M., "New directions in cryptography", IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. IT-22, No. 6, pp. 644-654, Nov. 1976.
[3]	Rivest, R, Shamir, A and Adleman, L, “A method for obtaining digital signatures and, public key cryptosystems,” Communications of the ACM, pp. 120-126, 21, 1978.
[4]	Riefel, E. and Polak, W., “An introduction to quantum computing for non-physicists”, arXiv: quant-ph/9809016, 1998.
[5]	Wiesner, S. “Conjugate coding”, SIGACT News, 15 (1): 78-88, 1983. Original manuscript written circa 1970.
[6]	Yanofsky, N.S. and M.A. Mannucci, Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
[7]	Bennett, C.H., and Bassard, G. “Quantum cryptography: public key distribution and coin tossing”, International Conference on Computers, Systems & Signal Processing, pp. 175-179, 1984.
[8]	Wooters, W.K., and Zurek, W.H., “A Single Quantum Cannot Be Cloned”, Nature 299, pp. 802-803, 1982.
[9]	Bennett, C.H., “Quantum cryptography using any two non-orthogonal states”, Phys. Rev. Letts. 68, pp. 3121-3124, 1992.
[10]	H. Bechmann-Pasquinucc and N. Gisin, “Incoherent and coherent eavesdropping in the six state protocol of quantum computing”, Phys. Rev. A 59, pp. 4238-4248, 1999.
[11]	A. Scarani, A. Acin, G. Ribordy and N. Gisin, “Quantum cryptography protocols robust against photon number splitting attacks”, Physical Review Letters, vol. 92, No. 5, pp. 2004.