The secrecy capacity of practical quantum cryptography

Gerald N. Gilbert; Michael Hamrick

doi:10.1117/12.487130

4 August 2003 The secrecy capacity of practical quantum cryptography

Gerald N. Gilbert, Michael Hamrick

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5105, Quantum Information and Computation; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.487130
Event: AeroSense 2003, 2003, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

Quantum cryptography has attracted much recent attention due to its potential for providing secret communications that cannot be decrypted by any amount of computational effort. This is the first analysis of the secrecy of a practical implementation of the BB84 protocol that simultaneously takes into account and presents the full set of analytical expressions for effects due to the presence of pulses containing multiple photons in the attenuated output of the laser, the finite length of individual blocks of key material, losses due to error correction, privacy amplification, and authentication, errors in polarization detection, the efficiency of the detectors, and attenuation processes in the transmission medium. The analysis addresses eavesdropping attacks on individual photons rather than collective attacks in general. Of particular importance is the first derivation of the necessary and sufficient amount of privacy amplification compression to ensure secrecy against the loss of key material which occurs when an eavesdropper makes optimized individual attacks on pulses containing multiple photons. It is shown that only a fraction of the information in the multiple photon pulses is actually lost to the eavesdropper.

Citation Download Citation

Gerald N. Gilbert and Michael Hamrick "The secrecy capacity of practical quantum cryptography", Proc. SPIE 5105, Quantum Information and Computation, (4 August 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.487130

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

;

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE