Remix.run Logo
maqp 6 hours ago

QKD is interesting from the PoV of perfect secrecy. But AFAIK with e.g. BB84, the basis orientation communication (used to detect OTP delivery eavesdropping) is done with Wegman-Carter (unconditionally secure) authentication using... a pre-shared key.

So if you're only interested in computational security that is post-quantum, why not pre-share a symmetric key for some AEAD scheme? You'll get forward secrecy with hash ratchet and neither provides future secrecy in principle.

Neither solves the bootstrap and QKD requires a really, really expensive and complex infrastructure just to provide perfect secrecy which we're fine without.

amluto 5 hours ago | parent [-]

In my opinion, QKD (implemented correctly) performs key exchange, basically like Diffie-Hellman except that it’s secure even against an adversary with unlimited computing power. If I had a quantum computer and a quantum network anyway, may I’d use it, but probably not with Wegman-Carter. If not, I wouldn’t.

(BB84 is from 1984. The terminology was different, and the understanding of what mattered in cryptography was different.)

mswphd 4 hours ago | parent [-]

BB84 (and QKD overall) requires authenticated channels. You have to get those somewhere. You can get them from an information-theoretically secure MAC, but it has significant downsides. You can get them with computationally secure primitives, but then there's no point in using QKD in the first place. You cannot instantiate QKD securely without one of those two choices though.