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QI: Fachverband Quanteninformation

QI 18: Quantum Communication

QI 18.4: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 12. März 2026, 16:00–16:15, BEY/0245

Quantum Key Distribution without Hidden Message Transmission — •Yien Liang, Anton Trushechkin, Hermann Kampermann, and Dagmar Bruß — Institut für Theoretische Physik III, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany

Steganography is the practice of hiding secret information within irrelevant information. A way to hide information within a valid digital signature is to take advantage of the random number required by a digital signature protocol, the adversary can maliciously choose a number that hides information instead of randomly choosing one. Such steganography technique is called subliminal channel [1]. A quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol involves communicating a large set of random random numbers, which can be used to establish a subliminal channel. The participants of a QKD protocol can intentionally hide information within the public announcement which is undetectable by any third party. Malicious QKD devices could also use a subliminal channel as a covert channel [2] to leak information to a third party. In our contribution, we propose a modified QKD protocol which is information-theoretic secure against eavesdropping and provable (more-than-one-bit-)subliminal-channel-free. We also generalize our results to quantum conference key agreement protocols.

[1] Simmons G J. Advances in cryptology: proceedings of crypto 83. Boston, MA: Springer US, 1984: 51-67. [2] Curty M, Lo H K. npj Quantum Information, 2019, 5(1): 14.

Keywords: Quantum Key Distribution; Quantum Cryptography; Quantum Communication; Steganography