Send the Key in Cleartext: Halving Key Consumption while Preserving Unconditional Security in QKD Authentication
Fuente:
arXiv
Gespeichert in:
| Hauptverfasser: | , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2026
|
| Schlagworte: | |
| Online-Zugang: | |
| Tags: |
Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
|
| _version_ | 1866918416438263808 |
|---|---|
| author | De Lazzari, Claudia Stocco, Francesco Signorini, Edoardo Fregona, Giacomo Chirici, Fernando Giani, Damiano Occhipinti, Tommaso Morgari, Guglielmo Zavatta, Alessandro Bacco, Davide |
| author_facet | De Lazzari, Claudia Stocco, Francesco Signorini, Edoardo Fregona, Giacomo Chirici, Fernando Giani, Damiano Occhipinti, Tommaso Morgari, Guglielmo Zavatta, Alessandro Bacco, Davide |
| contents | Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols require Information-Theoretically Secure (ITS) authentication of the classical channel to preserve the unconditional security of the distilled key. Standard ITS schemes are based on one-time keys: once a key is used to authenticate a message, it must be discarded. Since QKD requires mutual authentication, two independent one-time keys are typically consumed per round, imposing a non-trivial overhead on the net secure key rate. In this work, we present the authentication-with-response scheme, a novel ITS authentication scheme based on $\varepsilon$-Almost Strongly Universal$_2$ ($\varepsilon$-ASU$_2$) functions, whose IT security can be established in the Universal Composability (UC) framework. The scheme achieves mutual authentication consuming a single one-time key per QKD round, halving key consumption compared to the state-of-the-art. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_25496 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Send the Key in Cleartext: Halving Key Consumption while Preserving Unconditional Security in QKD Authentication De Lazzari, Claudia Stocco, Francesco Signorini, Edoardo Fregona, Giacomo Chirici, Fernando Giani, Damiano Occhipinti, Tommaso Morgari, Guglielmo Zavatta, Alessandro Bacco, Davide Quantum Physics Cryptography and Security Information Theory Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols require Information-Theoretically Secure (ITS) authentication of the classical channel to preserve the unconditional security of the distilled key. Standard ITS schemes are based on one-time keys: once a key is used to authenticate a message, it must be discarded. Since QKD requires mutual authentication, two independent one-time keys are typically consumed per round, imposing a non-trivial overhead on the net secure key rate. In this work, we present the authentication-with-response scheme, a novel ITS authentication scheme based on $\varepsilon$-Almost Strongly Universal$_2$ ($\varepsilon$-ASU$_2$) functions, whose IT security can be established in the Universal Composability (UC) framework. The scheme achieves mutual authentication consuming a single one-time key per QKD round, halving key consumption compared to the state-of-the-art. |
| title | Send the Key in Cleartext: Halving Key Consumption while Preserving Unconditional Security in QKD Authentication |
| topic | Quantum Physics Cryptography and Security Information Theory |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.25496 |