New Probabilistic Quantum Key Distribution Protocol

On the basis of entanglement swapping of Bell states, Hwang et al. proposed a probabilistic quantum key distribution (PQKD) protocol Quantum Inf. Comput. 11(7-8), 615-637 (2011). Recently, Lin et al. Quantum Inf. Comput. 14(9-10), 757-762 (2014) proposed a unitary operation attack on Hwang et al.'s PQKD. However, unlike the unitary operation attack, this work points out that a malicious participant in Hwang et al.'s PQKD protocol can manipulate the secret key. As a result, the security requirements of a PQKD protocol, i.e., fairness, cannot be satisfied in their protocol. Moreover, the same attack can also crack the fairness requirement of the existing quantum key agreement (QKA) protocols. To overcome both problems, this paper proposes a new PQKD protocol based on the order rearrangement of the transmitted photons. Furthermore, the rearrangement method can also solve the key manipulation attack in QKA protocols.