Measurement Device Independent Quantum Dialogue

TL;DR

This paper introduces a measurement device independent quantum dialogue protocol that enhances security against classical and side-channel attacks, does not require quantum memory, and is suitable for practical quantum communication implementations.

Contribution

It proposes a novel MDI-QD scheme resistant to information leakage and side-channel attacks, improving security and practicality over previous QD protocols.

Findings

Protocol is secure under adversarial measurement conditions.

Does not require quantum memory, increasing robustness.

Resistant to side-channel and memory attacks.

Abstract

Very recently, the experimental demonstration of Quantum Secure Direct Communication (QSDC) with state-of-the-art atomic quantum memory has been reported (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2017). Quantum Dialogue (QD) falls under QSDC where the secrete messages are communicated simultaneously between two legitimate parties. The successful experimental demonstration of QSDC opens up the possibilities for practical implementation of QD protocols. Thus, it is necessary to analyze the practical security issues of QD protocols for future implementation. Since the very first proposal for QD by Nguyen (Phys. Lett. A, 2004) a large number of variants and extensions have been presented till date. However, all of those leak half of the secret bits to the adversary through classical communications of the measurement results. In this direction, motivated by the idea of Lo et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2012), we propose a Measurement Device Independent Quantum Dialogue (MDI-QD) scheme which is resistant to such information leakage as well as side channel attacks. In the proposed protocol, Alice and Bob, two legitimate parties, are allowed to prepare the states only. The states are measured by an untrusted third party (UTP) who may himself behave as an adversary. We show that our protocol is secure under this adversarial model. The current protocol does not require any quantum memory and thus it is inherently robust against memory attacks. Such robustness might not be guaranteed in the QSDC protocol with quantum memory (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2017).