Stream Privacy Amplification for Quantum Cryptography

Privacy amplification is the key step to guarantee the security of quantum communication. The existing security proofs require the accumulation of a large number of raw key bits for privacy amplification. This is similar to block ciphers in classical cryptography that would delay the final key generation since an entire block must be accumulated ahead of privacy amplification. Moreover, any leftover errors after information reconciliation would corrupt the entire block. By modifying the security proof based on quantum error correction, we develop a stream privacy-amplification scheme, which resembles the classical stream cipher. This scheme can output the final key in a stream way, prevent error from spreading, and hence can put privacy amplification ahead of information reconciliation. The stream scheme can also help to enhance the security of trusted-relay quantum networks and improve the practicality of randomness extraction for quantum random number generators.

Automated summary

The existing security proofs require a large number of raw key bits for privacy amplification, similar to block ciphers in classical cryptography. By modifying the security proof, a stream privacy-amplification scheme is developed to output the final key in a stream way, prevent error from spreading, thereby enhancing quantum communication security.