Qiao-Yan Wen

Cryptanalysis of the Hillery-Buzek-Berthiaume quantum secret-sharing protocol

The participant attack is the most serious threat for quantum secret-sharing protocols. We present a method to analyze the security of quantum secret-sharing protocols against this kind of attack taking the scheme of Hillery, Buzek, and Berthiaume (HBB) [Phys. Rev. A 59 1829 (1999)] as an example. By distinguishing between two mixed states, we derive the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a dishonest participant can attain all the information without introducing any error, which shows that the HBB protocol is insecure against dishonest participants. It is easy to verify that the attack scheme of Karlsson, Koashi, and Imoto [Phys. Rev. A 59, 162 (1999)] is a special example of our results. To demonstrate our results further, we construct an explicit attack scheme according to the necessary and sufficient conditions. Our work completes the security analysis of the HBB protocol, and the method presented may be useful for the analysis of other similar protocols.

A steganographic method for digital images with four-pixel differencing and modified LSB substitution

To improve the embedding capacity and provide an imperceptible visual quality, a novel steganographic method based on four-pixel differencing and modified least significant bit (LSB) substitution is presented. The average difference value of a four-pixel block is exploited to classify the block as a smooth area or an edge area. Secret data are hidden into each pixel by the k-bit modified LSB substitution method, where k is decided by the level which the average difference value falls into. Readjustment will be executed to guarantee the same level that the average difference value belongs to before and after embedding, and to minimize the perceptual distortion. By proving that the readjusting procedure works, a theoretical proof is given to justify our method succeeded in embedding and extracting. Our experimental results have shown that the proposed method not only has an acceptable image quality but also provides a large embedding capacity.

Comment on: “Quantum exam” [Phys. Lett. A 350 (2006) 174]

The security of quantum exam [Phys. Lett. A 350 (2006) 174] is analyzed and it is found that this protocol is secure for any eavesdropper except for the “students” who take part in the exam. Specifically, any student can steal other examinees’ solutions and then cheat in the exam. Furthermore, a possible improvement of this protocol is presented.

A watermark strategy for quantum images based on quantum fourier transform

We present a robust watermark strategy for quantum images. The watermark image is embedded into the fourier coefficients of the quantum carrier image, which will not affect the carrier image’s visual effect. Before being embedded into the carrier image, the watermark image is preprocessed to be seemingly meaningless using quantum circuit, which further ensures the security of the watermark image. The properties of fourier transform ensure that the watermark embedded in the carrier image resists the unavoidable noise and cropping.

Revisiting the security of quantum dialogue and bidirectional quantum secure direct communication

From the perspective of information theory and cryptography, the security of two quantum dialogue protocols and a bidirectional quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol was analyzed, and it was pointed out that the transmitted information would be partly leaked out in them. That is, any eavesdropper can elicit some information about the secrets from the public annunciations of the legal users. This phenomenon should have been strictly forbidden in a quantum secure communication. In fact, this problem exists in quite a few recent proposals and, therefore, it deserves more research attention in the following related study.

Multiparty quantum key agreement with single particles

Two conditions must be satisfied in a secure quantum key agreement (QKA) protocol: (1) outside eavesdroppers cannot gain the generated key without introducing any error; (2) the generated key cannot be determined by any non-trivial subset of the participants. That is, a secure QKA protocol can not only prevent the outside attackers from stealing the key, but also resist the attack from inside participants, i.e. some dishonest participants determine the key alone by illegal means. How to resist participant attack is an aporia in the design of QKA protocols, especially the multi-party ones. In this paper we present the first secure multiparty QKA protocol against both outside and participant attacks. Further more, we have proved its security in detail.

Efficient quantum private comparison employing single photons and collective detection

Two efficient quantum private comparison (QPC) protocols are proposed, employing single photons and collective detection. In the proposed protocols, two distrustful parties (Alice and Bob) compare the equivalence of information with the help of a semi-honest third party (TP). Utilizing collective detection, the cost of practical realization is reduced greatly. In the first protocol, TP gains the result of the comparison. While in the second protocol, TP cannot get the comparison result. In both of our protocols, Alice and Bob only need be equipped with unitary operation machines, such as phase plates. So Alice and Bob need not to have the expensive quantum devices, such as qubit generating machine, quantum memory machine and quantum measuring machine. Security of the protocols is ensured by theorems on quantum operation discrimination.

A Secure and Efficient Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme Based on ECC for Telecare Medicine Information Systems

In the field of the Telecare Medicine Information System, recent researches have focused on consummating more convenient and secure healthcare delivery services for patients. In order to protect the sensitive information, various attempts such as access control have been proposed to safeguard patients’ privacy in this system. However, these schemes suffered from some certain security defects and had costly consumption, which were not suitable for the telecare medicine information system. In this paper, based on the elliptic curve cryptography, we propose a secure and efficient two-factor mutual authentication and key agreement scheme to reduce the computational cost. Such a scheme enables to provide the patient anonymity by employing the dynamic identity. Compared with other related protocols, the security analysis and performance evaluation show that our scheme overcomes some well-known attacks and has a better performance in the telecare medicine information system.

Consistency of shared reference frames should be reexamined

In a recent Letter [G. Chiribella et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 120501 (2007)], four protocols were proposed to secretly transmit a reference frame. Here We point out that in these protocols an eavesdropper can change the transmitted reference frame without being detected, which means the consistency of the shared reference frames should be reexamined. The way to check the above consistency is discussed. It is shown that this problem is quite different from that in previous protocols of quantum cryptography.

Flexible quantum private queries based on quantum key distribution

By adding a parameter θ in M. Jakobi et als protocol [Phys. Rev. A 83, 022301 (2011)], we present a flexible quantum-key-distribution-based protocol for quantum private queries. We show that, by adjusting the value of θ, the average number of the key bits Alice obtains can be located on any fixed value the users wanted for any database size. And the parameter k is generally smaller (even k = 1 can be achieved) when θ < π/4, which implies lower complexity of both quantum and classical communications. Furthermore, the users can choose a smaller θ to get better database security, or a larger θ to obtain a lower probability with which Bob can correctly guess the address of Alices query.