Robust cryptography in the noisy-quantum-storage model

Abstract

It was shown in [42] that cryptographic primitives can be implemented based on the assumption that quantum storage of qubits is noisy. In this work we analyze a protocol for the universal task of oblivious transfer that can be implemented using quantumkey- distribution (QKD) hardware in the practical setting where honest participants are unable to perform noise-free operations. We derive trade-offs between the amount of storage noise, the amount of noise in the operations performed by the honest participants and the security of oblivious transfer which are greatly improved compared to the results in [42]. As an example, we show that for the case of depolarizing noise in storage we can obtain secure oblivious transfer as long as the quantum bit-error rate of the channel does not exceed 11% and the noise on the channel is strictly less than the quantum storage noise. This is optimal for the protocol considered. Finally, we show that our analysis easily carries over to quantum protocols for secure identification.