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Advanced semi-quantum secure direct communication protocol based on bell states against flip attack

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Abstract

This study proposes two advanced semi-quantum secure direct communication (SQSDC) protocols to address the security problems in Xie et al.’s SQSDC protocol, and further, briefly discusses those security problems. Xie et al. (Int J Theor Phys 57(6):1881–1887, 2018) proposed an SQSDC protocol based on Bell states. However, an eavesdropper can deliberately flip the secret messages sent through Xie et al.’s SQSDC protocol, and can launch a man-in-the-middle attack to obtain part of the secret messages, both without being detected. If not addressed, these security problems can cause the protocol to fail at delivering secret messages. Accordingly, the proposed SQSDC protocols are resistant to the flip attack, man-in-the-middle attack, tagging attack, and collective attack. Moreover, the qubit efficiency of the proposed schemes is the same as Xie et al.’s scheme.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their very valuable comments, which greatly enhanced the clarity of this paper. This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. (Grant Nos. MOST 106-2218-E-039-002-MY3, MOST 107-2218-E-143-002-MY2, and MOST 107-2627-E-006-001), and China Medical University, Taiwan (Grant No. CMU108-N-01).

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  1. Center for General Education, China Medical University, No. 91, Hsueh-Shih Rd., Taichung City, 40402, Taiwan

    Chun-Wei Yang

  2. College of Humanities and Sciences, China Medical University, No. 91, Hsueh-Shih Rd., Taichung City, 40402, Taiwan

    Chun-Wei Yang

  3. Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taitung University, No. 369, Sec. 2, University Rd., Taitung City, 95092, Taiwan

    Chia-Wei Tsai

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Yang, CW., Tsai, CW. Advanced semi-quantum secure direct communication protocol based on bell states against flip attack. Quantum Inf Process 19, 126 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-020-02623-7

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