Dual universality of hash functions and its applications to quantum cryptography

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of dual universality of hash functions and demonstrates their sufficiency for quantum cryptography, simplifying the construction of secure quantum key distribution systems.

Contribution

It generalizes universal hash functions to dual universal hash functions and applies this to improve security proofs in quantum cryptography.

Findings

Dual universal hash functions are sufficient for quantum cryptography security.

The new approach simplifies quantum key distribution by replacing complex code constructions.

Security bounds are improved using the Shor-Preskill formalism with dual universal hash functions.

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce the concept of dual universality of hash functions and present its applications to quantum cryptography. We begin by establishing the one-to-one correspondence between a linear function family {\cal F} and a code family {\cal C}, and thereby defining \varepsilon-almost dual universal_2 hash functions, as a generalization of the conventional universal_2 hash functions. Then we show that this generalized (and thus broader) class of hash functions is in fact sufficient for the security of quantum cryptography. This result can be explained in two different formalisms. First, by noting its relation to the \delta-biased family introduced by Dodis and Smith, we demonstrate that Renner's two-universal hashing lemma is generalized to our class of hash functions. Next, we prove that the proof technique by Shor and Preskill can be applied to quantum key distribution (QKD) systems that use our generalized class of hash functions for privacy amplification. While Shor-Preskill formalism requires an implementer of a QKD system to explicitly construct a linear code of the Calderbank-Shor-Steane type, this result removes the existing difficulty of the construction a linear code of CSS code by replacing it by the combination of an ordinary classical error correcting code and our proposed hash function. We also show that a similar result applies to the quantum wire-tap channel. Finally we compare our results in the two formalisms and show that, in typical QKD scenarios, the Shor-Preskill--type argument gives better security bounds in terms of the trace distance and Holevo information, than the method based on the \delta-biased family.