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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.16071 |
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| _version_ | 1866918481044176896 |
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| author | Bogner, Kevin Abidin, Aysajan Singelee, Dave Preneel, Bart |
| author_facet | Bogner, Kevin Abidin, Aysajan Singelee, Dave Preneel, Bart |
| contents | Distance-bounding (DB) protocols let a verifier upper-bound a prover's physical distance by timing rapid challenge-response exchanges. Quantum communication promises simpler DB protocols with stronger security guarantees, yet existing quantum distance-bounding (QDB) proposals are analysed in ad-hoc models and, to the best of our knowledge, lack a common game-based treatment of standard fraud attacks. We contribute (i) a reusable security framework for QDB that fixes system and timing assumptions, specifies a quantum-capable adversary model, formalises distance-, mafia-, and terrorist-fraud experiments, and includes a simple i.i.d. depolarizing noise model; and (ii) an application of this framework to a published QDB protocol. For this protocol we characterise the honest per-round acceptance probability under noise and lift it to the multi-round setting, yielding explicit completeness guarantees as a function of the number of fast rounds, the acceptance threshold, and the noise parameter. For active adversaries we bound the per-round success probability of distance-fraud attacks and analyse the best known mafia-fraud strategy, deriving corresponding multi-round soundness bounds. We also show that the protocol is inherently insecure against terrorist-fraud in our model. The framework cleanly separates protocol-independent definitions from protocol-specific analysis and can be used to evaluate existing and future QDB protocols on a common basis. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_16071 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Security Framework for Quantum Distance-Bounding Bogner, Kevin Abidin, Aysajan Singelee, Dave Preneel, Bart Quantum Physics Distance-bounding (DB) protocols let a verifier upper-bound a prover's physical distance by timing rapid challenge-response exchanges. Quantum communication promises simpler DB protocols with stronger security guarantees, yet existing quantum distance-bounding (QDB) proposals are analysed in ad-hoc models and, to the best of our knowledge, lack a common game-based treatment of standard fraud attacks. We contribute (i) a reusable security framework for QDB that fixes system and timing assumptions, specifies a quantum-capable adversary model, formalises distance-, mafia-, and terrorist-fraud experiments, and includes a simple i.i.d. depolarizing noise model; and (ii) an application of this framework to a published QDB protocol. For this protocol we characterise the honest per-round acceptance probability under noise and lift it to the multi-round setting, yielding explicit completeness guarantees as a function of the number of fast rounds, the acceptance threshold, and the noise parameter. For active adversaries we bound the per-round success probability of distance-fraud attacks and analyse the best known mafia-fraud strategy, deriving corresponding multi-round soundness bounds. We also show that the protocol is inherently insecure against terrorist-fraud in our model. The framework cleanly separates protocol-independent definitions from protocol-specific analysis and can be used to evaluate existing and future QDB protocols on a common basis. |
| title | Security Framework for Quantum Distance-Bounding |
| topic | Quantum Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.16071 |