Client-server Identification Protocols with Quantum PUF

Abstract

Recently, major progress has been made towards the realisation of quantum internet to enable a broad range of classically intractable applications. These applications such as delegated quantum computation require running a secure identification protocol between a low-resource and a high-resource party to provide secure communication. In this work, we propose two identification protocols based on the emerging hardware-secure solutions, the quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (qPUFs). The first protocol allows a low-resource party to prove its identity to a high-resource party and in the second protocol, it is vice versa. Unlike existing identification protocols based on Quantum Read-out PUFs that rely on the security against a specific family of attacks, our protocols provide provable exponential security against any Quantum Polynomial-Time adversary with resource-efficient parties. We provide a comprehensive comparison between the two proposed protocols in terms of resources such as quantum memory and computing ability required in both parties as well as the communication overhead between them.