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arXiv · 0806.1231

Improving Classical Authentication with Quantum Communication

F. M. Assis·P. Mateus·Y. Omar
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Abstract

We propose a quantum-enhanced protocol to authenticate classical messages, with improved security with respect to the classical scheme introduced by Brassard in 1983. In that protocol, the shared key is the seed of a pseudo-random generator (PRG) and a hash function is used to create the authentication tag of a public message. We show that a quantum encoding of secret bits offers more security than the classical XOR function introduced by Brassard. Furthermore, we establish the relationship between the bias of a PRG and the amount of information about the key that the attacker can retrieve from a block of authenticated messages. Finally, we prove that quantum resources can improve both the secrecy of the key generated by the PRG and the secrecy of the tag obtained with a hidden hash function.

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F. M. Assis, P. Mateus, Y. Omar. 2010-02-11. Improving Classical Authentication with Quantum Communication. https://arxiv.org/abs/0806.1231

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