FET: Small: Theoretical and Algorithmic Foundations of Covert Quantum-Secured Networks

随着通信网络的普及，保护通过这些渠道传输的日益增长的敏感信息已成为一项艰巨的挑战;在一个日益复杂和竞争激烈的互联世界中，创建和传播敏感信息的行为可能成为一种责任。该项目将通过开发利用量子特性（如光学系统中遇到的光子特性）的系统来帮助解决这一安全挑战，以确保通信可以保持秘密（在信息内容受到保护的意义上）和隐蔽（在无法检测到通信的存在的意义上）。该项目将开发量子信息理论的理论模型和算法，为保密性和隐蔽性提供可证明的保证。除了研究安全隐蔽通信的量子信息理论方面外，研究小组还将指导从事这项研究的学生，开发量子信息理论的研究生课程，并参与合作努力，实验测试和演示所提出的模型和算法。该项目将设计和分析合法各方之间通过量子信道进行通信的协议，以这样的方式，各方可以可证明地断言他们的通信是否已经被检测到，并且生成具有可证明的低检测概率的秘密密钥。在初步结果的支持下，该项目将探索如何将信息编码到量子态序列中，以及如何在通过噪声信道传输后解码序列，以这种方式，仅受量子物理定律限制的对手既不能检测也不能提取信息。解决的主要挑战是如何调和使用极其分散的信息内容以逃避检测的需要，同时仍然能够在接收器处处理信息。所提出的秘密和隐蔽密钥生成协议的性能将通过以下方式与已建立的量子密钥分发协议的性能进行比较：开发一个精确的量子信息理论框架，在该框架中研究量子信道上隐蔽和秘密密钥生成的可能性;设计低复杂度算法，允许处理隐蔽信号的扩散统计信息内容;该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With the widespread of communication networks, protecting the ever growing amount of sensitive information transiting through these channels has become a daunting challenge; in an ever more complex and competitive interconnected world, the mere act of creating and communicating sensitive information may become a liability. This project will help address this security challenge by developing systems that exploit quantum properties (such as those of photons encountered in optical systems) to ensure that communications can remain secret (in the sense that the information content is protected) and covert (in the sense that the presence of communication cannot be detected). The project will develop theoretical models in quantum information theory and algorithms that offer provable guarantees for secrecy and covertness. In addition to investigating quantum information-theoretic aspects of secure covert communications, the research team will mentor students engaged in this research, develop a graduate level course on quantum information theory, and engage in collaborative efforts to experimentally test and demonstrate the proposed models and algorithms.The project will design and analyze protocols for communication over quantum channels between legitimate parties, in such a way that the parties can provably assert if their communication has been detected and generate secret keys with provably low-probability of detection. Supported by preliminary results, this project will explore how to encode information onto sequences of quantum states and how to decode the sequences after transmission through a noisy channel, in such a way that adversaries that are limited only by the laws of quantum physics can neither detect nor extract information. The main challenge addressed is how to reconcile the need for using an extremely diffuse information content to escape detection while still being able to process the information at a receiver. The performance of the proposed secret and covert key generation protocols will be compared to that of established quantum key distributions protocols through the development of a precise quantum information-theoretic framework in which to study the possibility of covert and secret key generation over quantum channels; the design of low-complexity algorithms allowing one to process the diffuse statistical information content of covert signals; and the experimental validation of theoretical models and algorithm in an optical testbed.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.