Distributed authentication for randomly compromised networks

TL;DR

This paper presents a practical distributed authentication scheme for networks that enhances security by combining classical secret sharing with partially trusted intermediaries, reducing failure probabilities exponentially with increased connectivity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel distributed authentication method that addresses quantum key distribution security weaknesses using probabilistic information-theoretic techniques.

Findings

Provides arbitrarily high confidence in security

Failure probability decreases exponentially with network connectivity

Addresses man-in-the-middle attack vulnerabilities

Abstract

We introduce a simple, practical approach with probabilistic information-theoretic security to solve one of quantum key distribution's major security weaknesses: the requirement of an authenticated classical channel to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. Our scheme employs classical secret sharing and partially trusted intermediaries to provide arbitrarily high confidence in the security of the protocol. Although certain failures elude detection, we discuss preemptive strategies to reduce the probability of failure to an arbitrarily small level: probability of such failures is exponentially suppressed with increases in connectivity (i.e., connections per node).