Improving Classical Authentication with Quantum Communication
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.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0806.1231,
title = {Improving Classical Authentication with Quantum Communication},
author = {F. M. Assis and P. Mateus and Y. Omar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0806.1231},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
New improved version, with several clarifications in the text and new figures