(Quantum) Min-Entropy Resources
This work addresses the need for composable security frameworks in quantum cryptography, offering a modular approach to simplify proofs for protocols like QKD and quantum authentication, though it is incremental in building on existing resource theories.
The paper tackles the problem of modularizing security proofs for quantum key distribution and authentication protocols by introducing a min-entropy resource model that guarantees a lower bound on conditional min-entropy, and applies it to provide composable security proofs for key distribution and a specific quantum message authentication protocol.
We model (interactive) resources that provide Alice with a string $X$ and a guarantee that any Eve interacting with her interface of the resource obtains a (quantum) system $E$ such that the conditional (smooth) min-entropy of $X$ given $E$ is lower bounded by some $k$. This (abstract) resource specification encompasses any setting that results in the honest players holding such a string (or aborting). For example, it could be constructed from, e.g., noisy channels, quantum key distribution (QKD), or a violation of Bell inequalities, which all may be used to derive bounds on the min-entropy of $X$. As a first application, we use this min-entropy resource to modularize key distribution (KD) schemes by dividing them in two parts, which may be analyzed separately. In the first part, a KD protocol constructs a min-entropy resource given the (physical) resources available in the specific setting considered. In the second, it distills secret key from the min-entropy resource---i.e., it constructs a secret key resource. We prove security for a generic key distillation protocol that may use any min-entropy resource. Since the notion of resource construction is composable---security of a composed protocol follows from the security of its parts--- this reduces proving security of a KD protocol (e.g., QKD) to proving that it constructs a min-entropy resource. As a second application, we provide a composable security proof for the recent Fehr-Salvail protocol [EUROCRYPT 2017] that authenticates classical messages with a quantum message authentication code (Q-MAC), and recycles all the key upon successfully verifying the authenticity of the message. This protocol uses (and recycles) a non-uniform key, which we model as consuming and constructing a min-entropy resource.