Building the quantum network*

Elliott, Chip

doi:10.1088/1367-2630/4/1/346

Cited by 281 publications

(166 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Since the invention of the BB84 protocol 1 , the theory and practice of QKD has come a long way. Various different QKD protocols have been proposed in the last three decades 2 , some of which are now turning from science into practical technologies [3][4][5] . Security of QKD has now been proven for many protocols and under practical limitations such as a finite key length 6,7 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamental rate-loss tradeoff for optical quantum key distribution

2014

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Since 1984, various optical quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols have been proposed and examined. In all of them, the rate of secret key generation decays exponentially with distance. A natural and fundamental question is then whether there are yet-to-be discovered optical QKD protocols (without quantum repeaters) that could circumvent this rate-distance tradeoff. This paper provides a major step towards answering this question. Here we show that the secret key agreement capacity of a lossy and noisy optical channel assisted by unlimited two-way public classical communication is limited by an upper bound that is solely a function of the channel loss, regardless of how much optical power the protocol may use. Our result has major implications for understanding the secret key agreement capacity of optical channels-a long-standing open problem in optical quantum information theory-and strongly suggests a real need for quantum repeaters to perform QKD at high rates over long distances.

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confidence: 99%

Fundamental rate-loss tradeoff for optical quantum key distribution

2014

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“…This combination is the one that is currently pushed forward by existing commercial QKD vendors [6]. It provides a practical solution adopted within the BBN Darpa Quantum Network project [76]. Such a composition provides a practical solution to realise a point-to-point VPN encryptor, that can be deployed in layer 2 (link) in the OSI network layer model [6] or directly in the layer 3 (network), for example by interfacing QKD-based key exchange with IPSEC [77,78].…”

Section: Qkd Composed With a Classical Computationally Secure Symmetrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Active optical switching can also be used to allow the selective connection of any two QKD nodes with a direct quantum channel. The BBN Darpa quantum network [76,77] contains an active 2-by-2 optical switch in one node, that can be used to actively switch between two network topologies. Optical functions can thus be used to realise multi-user QKD and the corresponding nodes do not need to be trusted, since quantum signals are transmitted over a quantum channel with no interruption from one enduser QKD device to the other one.…”

Section: Qkd Network Architecturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…End-to-end information-theoretic security is thus obtained between the end nodes provided the intermediate nodes can be trusted. [76,77] and more recently by the SECOQC consortium that developed a highly integrated network architecture, with dedicated protocols, allowing global key management [87,88] and leading to a demonstration in 2008 in Vienna [61]. A trusted repeater network is essentially a classical network where the exchanged data consists in keys encrypted with QKD-based keys.…”

Section: Trusted Repeater Qkd Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using quantum key distribution for cryptographic purposes: A survey

Alléaume

Branciard

Bouda

et al. 2014

Theoretical Computer Science

164

105

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The appealing feature of quantum key distribution (QKD), from a cryptographic viewpoint, is the ability to prove the information-theoretic security (ITS) of the established keys. As a key establishment primitive, QKD however does not provide a standalone security service in its own: the secret keys established by QKD are in general then used by a subsequent cryptographic applications for which the requirements, the context of use and the security properties can vary. It is therefore important, in the perspective of integrating QKD in security infrastructures, to analyze how QKD can be combined with other cryptographic primitives.The purpose of this survey article, which is mostly centered on European research results, is to contribute to such an analysis. We first review and compare the properties of the existing key establishment techniques, QKD being one of them. We then study more specifically two generic scenarios related to the practical use of QKD in cryptographic infrastructures: 1) using QKD as a key renewal technique for a symmetric cipher over a point-to-point link ; 2) using QKD in a network containing many users with the objective of offering any-to-any key establishment service. We discuss the constraints as well as the potential interest of using QKD in these contexts. We finally give an overview of challenges relative to the development of QKD technology that also constitute potential avenues for cryptographic research.

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“…The natural idea to extend point-to-point connections to networks has been studied in the QKD case theoretically [19] and experimentally [20,21]. In parallel to the conception of SECOQC a first proof-of-principle QKD network demonstrator, the 'DARPA Quantum Network', was deployed between Harvard University, Boston University and BBN in 2004 [22,23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%