Eavesdropping on the ping-pong quantum communication protocol -: art. no. 157901

Security of the ping-pong quantum communication protocol recently proposed by Bostrom and Felbinger [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 187902 (2002)] is analyzed in the case of considerable quantum channel losses. The eavesdropping scheme is presented, which reveals that the ping-pong protocol is not secure for transmission efficiencies lower than 60%. Our scheme induces 50% losses, which, however, can be hidden in the channel losses if one replaces the original lossy channel with a less lossy one. Finally, a possible improvement of the ping-pong protocol security is proposed.