# Untitled Document

DAMTP-1997-135 quant-ph/9810068 

Unconditionally Secure Bit Commitment   

Adrian Kent

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics,

University of Cambridge,

Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EW, U.K.

Abstract

We describe a new classical bit commitment protocol based on cryptographic constraints imposed by special relativity. The protocol is unconditionally secure against classical or quantum attacks. It evades the no-go results of Mayers, Lo and Chau by requiring from Alice a sequence of communications, including a post-revelation verification, each of which is guaranteed to be independent of its predecessor. PACS numbers: 03.67.-a, 03.67.Dd, 89.70.+c Electronic address: apak@damtp.cam.ac.uk

1. Introduction

The discovery of secure quantum key distribution\[1\] and other applications of quantum information has excited much interest in the general question of precisely which cryptographic tasks can be guaranteed secure by physical principles. In particular, several papers\[2,,3,,4,,5,,6,,7,,8,,9,,10\] have addressed the question of whether security can be physically guaranteed for the key crytographic primitive of bit commitment.

In a bit commitment protocol Alice and Bob exchange data in such a way that Bob obtains an encoding of a bit chosen by Alice. For the protocol to be secure against Bob, it must guarantee that Bob cannot decode the bit until Alice chooses to reveal it by supplying further information. For it to be secure against Alice, it must guarantee that the bit is genuinely fixed between commitment and revelation: there must not be two different decodings of the bit which leave Alice free to reveal either $`0`$ or $`1`$, as she wishes.

Bit commitment per se has obvious practical applications. For example, a secure bit commitment protocol would allow Alice to make predictions which could be verified post hoc without giving Bob any possibility of extracting information before the predicted event. More generally, bit commitment is a powerful cryptographic primitive. A trusted protocol for committing a classical bit could used as a building block for protocols implementing a wide range of other cryptographic tasks, including coin tossing\[11\], zero-knowledge proofs\[12\], oblivious transfer\[13\] and (hence) secure two-party computation\[14\].

In the standard cryptographic scenario, Alice and Bob each occupy a laboratory. Each trusts the integrity of their own laboratory but nothing outside. It is usually implicitly assumed that the presumed separation of the laboratories is large compared to their size. In this situation, a protocol must allow for a time lapse between the transmission of a signal and its receipt. However, neither party can be certain whether the other actually it is confined to a distant laboratory: if it were advantageous, Bob might set up a secret laboratory adjacent to Alice’s, or vice versa. Allowing for special relativity gives no security advantage under these conditions, since no time lapse can be guaranteed, so that no arrangement of timings in a protocol can guarantee that messages sent by Alice and by Bob were each generated without knowledge of the other. Thus they are effectively restricted to protocols in which they sequentially exchange messages, each waiting to receive one message before sending the next, and their communications may as well be taken to be non-relativistic.

We refer to any bit commitment protocol that relies on this scenario as a standard protocol. We refer to a protocol as classical if the protocol can be followed by exchanging classical information, and as quantum if it requires the exchange of quantum information. We follow the formal definitions of perfect and unconditional security given in Ref. \[6\].

All standard classical bit commitment protocols are in principle insecure, though very good practical security can be attained. Several quantum bit commitment schemes have been proposed.\[ee..gg..2----5\] But all standard quantum bit commitment schemes were also shown by Mayers, Lo and Chau\[6,,7,,15,,8,,9\] to be insecure. We follow general usage in referring to the result that unconditionally secure quantum bit commitment is impossible as the Mayers-Lo-Chau no-go theorem or MLC theorem.

In practice, current bit commitment protocols rely for their security on the assumption that some computational task is sufficiently hard that it cannot be carried out during the lifetime of the protocol. While those assumptions are generally well founded, they never absolutely guarantee security. Moreover, the possible development of quantum computers renders the computational assumptions underlying present day bit commitment protocols distinctly vulnerable. The MLC theorem tells us that quantum technology offers no compensating solution. Lo has also shown that other two-party cryptographic tasks cannot be securely implemented by quantum communication.\[16\]

All of these no-go theorems implicitly assume that relativity can be neglected, as is indeed the case for standard protocols. Here we describe a protocol which uses a variant of the standard cryptographic scenario in which each party controls two separated sites. Relativity plays an essential role in this protocol: its security is guaranteed by the impossibility of superluminal signalling.

Variations of the standard cryptographic scenario of this type, in which special relativity plays a rôle, do not seem to have been widely considered. Such protocols were, however, mentioned briefly in Mayers’ announcement of the no-go theorem\[6\] for unconditionally secure quantum bit commitment, where it is suggested that the no-go theorem applies also to quantum bit commitment protocols based on special relativity.

The validity of the MLC theorem in the standard scenario is not disputed here, but we argue for the opposite conclusion when special relativity is taken into account. We first describe a relativistic cryptographic scenario in which each party controls laboratories in two separated locations. These laboratories must be near to mutually agreed coordinates, and the protocol includes tests to verify that this is so. This should be stressed: neither party needs to trust the other’s word as to the locations of their laboratories, nor do these locations need to be declared precisely.

Next, we describe a bit commitment protocol in this scenario. The protocol is classical: it does not require the transmission or processing of quantum information. Nothing in it prevents either party from using quantum information transmissions. However, the classicality of the information could be enforced by a reasonable extra cryptographic assumption, namely the use of channels trusted by both parties to be decohering. Its security can thus sensibly be analysed by considering it either as a classical protocol or a quantum protocol. It is, we argue, unconditionally secure in either case.

Ben-Or et al. (BGKW) some time ago\[17\] proposed an interesting bit commitment protocol which, like that presented here, depends on separating Alice into two parties, in this case isolated by Faraday cages. Its security against quantum attacks has been discussed by Brassard et al. (BCMS) \[10\]. Among the significant differences between the Ben-Or et al. protocol and the one below are that the BGKW protocol gives Bob no reliable test for ensuring that the two Alices are indeed unable to communicate: unlike the present protocol, its security is not guaranteed by physical laws. If the isolation is ensured by special relativity, the BGKW protocol can be seen as a precursor of that described here.

The possibility of ensuring temporary isolation by special relativity was noted by BCMS \[10\].<sup>1</sup> BCMS follow Mayers in concluding that unconditionally secure bit commitment is impossible. However, no complete discussion of the uses of relativity in obviating the need for trust seems to have previously appeared in print. As the next section explains, the protocol given here uses a relativistic scenario in which Alice and Bob are treated symmetrically and in which it is demonstrably unnecessary for either party to trust in the locations of the other. Finally, the key new feature of our protocol is the use of a sequence of communications to maintain security indefinitely.

2. Cryptography and relativity

We now consider a cryptographic scenario in which two parties carry out operations from separated regions in Minkowski spacetime. In fact, it is sufficient for the local geometry to be approximately Minkowski, so that the protocol can indeed be securely implemented in the real world. However, strictly speaking, even assuming an approximately Minkowski background violates the cryptographic rule that the world outside the laboratory cannot be trusted. Alice and Bob need to be confident that the geometry of the spacetime region is indeed nearly flat, that they have a correct description of the local light cones, and that there are no wormholes or other mechanisms allowing signalling between spacelike separated points.

These caveats are rather irrelevant for practical applications at present. It seems safe, for example, to neglect the danger that a protocol carried out within the solar system might be subverted by one of the parties surreptitiously introducing very massive bodies. Still, there is a theoretical case for distinguishing unconditional security based on special relativity and on general relativity. We take special relativity to be the underlying theory here, and we set $`c=1`$.

Consider now the following arrangement. Alice and Bob agree on a frame, on global coordinates, and on the location of two sites $`\underset{¯}{x}_1,\underset{¯}{x}_2`$. Alice and Bob are required to erect laboratories, including sending and receiving stations, within a distance $`\delta `$ of the sites, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=|\underset{¯}{x}_1\underset{¯}{x}_2|\delta `$. The precise locations of the laboratories need not be disclosed: it is sufficient that test signals sent out from each of Bob’s laboratories receive a response within time $`2\delta `$ from Alice. In the protocol below, Bob need not reply immediately to Alice’s communications, but the parties will probably want to test that Bob likewise replies to Alice’s test signals within time $`2\delta `$ in order to confirm that the channels are working properly in both directions. The laboratories need not be restricted in size or shape, except that they must not overlap. This is implied by the standard assumption that Alice and Bob are each confident of the security of their own laboratories. We refer to the laboratories in the vicinity of $`\underset{¯}{x}_i`$ as $`A_i`$ and $`B_i`$, for $`i=1`$ or $`2`$.

We assume that $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ are collaborating with complete mutual trust and with prearranged agreements on how to proceed, to the extent that we identify them together simply as Alice; similarly $`B_1`$ and $`B_2`$ are identified as Bob. For example, considering embassies as faithful representatives of their respective governments, we could take $`A_1`$ to be the Andorran embassy in Belize, $`B_1`$, and $`B_2`$ the Belizean embassy in Andorra, $`A_2`$.

3. A bit commitment protocol

We first define a classical protocol and then examine its security against quantum attacks. Alice and Bob first agree a large number $`N`$. For simplicity we take $`N=2^m`$, where the integer $`m`$ is the security parameter for the protocol. All the arithmetic in the protocol is carried out modulo $`N`$. Before the protocol begins, $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ agree a list $`\{m_1,m_2,\mathrm{}\}`$ of independently chosen random numbers in the range $`0,1,\mathrm{},N1`$. The length of the list that will eventually be required is an exponential function of the anticipated time between commitment and unveiling. Alice and Bob also fix a time interval, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t<<\mathrm{\Delta }x`$, during which each round of communication between $`A_i`$ and $`B_i`$ (for $`i=1`$ or $`2`$) must be completed.

The protocol now proceeds as follows. Between time $`t=0`$ and $`t=\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, $`B_1`$ sends $`A_1`$ a labelled pair $`(n_0^1,n_1^1)`$ of randomly chosen distinct numbers in the range $`0,1,\mathrm{},N1`$. On receiving these numbers, $`A_1`$ returns either the number $`n_0^1+m_1`$ or $`n_1^1+m_1`$, depending whether she wants to commit a $`0`$ or a $`1`$, quickly enough that her message ends by time $`t=\delta +2\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ and so can be received by $`B_1`$ before time $`2\delta +2\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. At time $`t=T=\mathrm{\Delta }x2\mathrm{\Delta }t3\delta `$, $`B_2`$ asks $`A_2`$ to commit to him the binary form $`a_{m1}^1\mathrm{}a_0^1`$ of $`m_1`$. This is achieved by sending $`A_2`$ a set of $`m`$ labelled pairs $`(n_0^2,n_1^2),\mathrm{},(n_0^{m+1},n_1^{m+1})`$, and asking $`A_2`$ to return $`n_{a_0^1}^2+m_2,\mathrm{},n_{a_{m1}^1}^{m+1}+m_{m+1}`$. Bob’s message is to be completed by time $`T+\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ and Alice’s by $`T+\delta +2\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. Next, at time $`t=2T`$, $`B_1`$ asks $`A_1`$ to commit the binary forms of the random numbers $`m_2,\mathrm{},m_{m+1}`$ used by $`A_2`$. At time $`t=3T`$, $`B_2`$ asks $`A_2`$ to commit the binary forms of the random numbers $`m_{m+2},\mathrm{},m_{m^2+m+1}`$ used by $`A_1`$ in this commitment; and so forth. These later exchanges are all similarly timed, so that Bob’s $`(N+1)`$-th communication is completed by $`NT+\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ and Alice’s by $`NT+2\delta +2\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. The random pairs sent by the $`B_i`$ are all drawn from independent uniform distributions.

These commitments continue at regular intervals separated by $`T`$, consuming increasingly long segments of the random string shared by the $`A_i`$, until one or the other of the $`A_i`$ — or perhaps both, at spacelike separated points — chooses to unveil the originally committed bit. It is assumed that the $`A_i`$ have previously agreed under which conditions either of them will unveil. For $`A_1`$ to unveil, she reveals to $`B_1`$ the set of random numbers used by $`A_2`$ in her last set of commitments; similarly, $`A_2`$ unveils by revealing to $`B_2`$ the random numbers last used by $`A_1`$. To check the unveiling, $`B_1`$ and $`B_2`$ send the unveiling data and all previous commitments to some representative of Bob. This representative need not be in the same location as one of the $`B_i`$: if he is, only the other $`B_i`$ need send data.

In any case, Bob cannot verify the unveiling at any point outside the intersection of the future light cones of the points from which the $`A_i`$ sent their last communications — i.e. the unveiling and the last set of commitments. In this sense, the protocol is not complete at the moment of unveiling: it becomes complete only when Bob has all the necessary data in one place. The need to wait for receipt of information which is unknown to the unveiler $`A_i`$ (since it depends on the last set of pairs sent by $`B_{3i}`$) and to the unveilee $`B_i`$ (since it includes the last set of commitments sent by $`A_{3i}`$) means that the protocol is not vulnerable to a generalised Mayers-Lo-Chau attack.

The protocol is clearly secure against Bob, who receives what are to him random numbers throughout the protocol, until unveiling. We give here informal arguments for the insecurity against Alice.

4. Security against classical attacks

Can Alice unveil a $`0`$, having committed a $`1`$, or vice versa? Note first that if $`A_2`$ unveils at times between $`0`$ and $`T`$, the protocol is clearly secure. Now suppose for definiteness that $`A_1`$ unveils at time between $`NT`$ and $`(N+1)T`$. If the $`A_i`$ have followed the protocol throughout, and $`A_1`$ now gives $`B_1`$ the random numbers used by $`A_2`$ in her last commitment outside the future light cone of this communication, Bob will — once $`B_1`$ and $`B_2`$ have had time to communicate — be able to decode successive commitments back through to obtain the originally committed bit.

On the other hand, if $`A_1`$ gives $`B_1`$ any other set of random numbers, they will fail to correspond to a valid set of bit commitments with probability at least $`(1\frac{1}{N})`$, since $`A_1`$ cannot yet know the pairs $`(n_0^i,n_1^i)`$ supplied by $`B_2`$ for $`A_2`$’s last commitment. So $`A_1`$ must supply the correct numbers. Now if $`A_2`$’s last commitment was not of the random numbers previously used by $`A_1`$, a similar problem occurs. Hence, by induction on the total number of commitments, the protocol is secure against Alice.

5. Security against quantum attacks

Quantum attacks give Bob no advantage against an honest Alice. His only extra freedom is to send Alice superposition states instead of classical descriptions of the pairs $`(n_0^i,n_1^i)`$, and since she can legitimately carry out measurements on them and follow the classical protocol, this gains him nothing. We can therefore assume that Bob sends classical signals to Alice, and that at unveiling he carries out measurements on any superposed quantum signals sent by her, so as to obtain a definite set of numbers for each commitment.

Alice’s position is a little more complicated to analyse. Quantum theory clearly opens up new strategies for her. For example, following the general Mayers-Lo-Chau strategy\[6,,8,,10\] for cheating standard quantum bit commitment schemes, she can keep all her random choices at the quantum level. To do this, instead of sharing a list of random numbers from $`0`$ to $`N1`$ before the protocol, $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ share entangled “quantum dice” in correlated states of the form $`_{i=0}^{N1}a_i|ii|`$.

Alice could also commit a random quantum bit — a state of the form $`a|0+b|1`$ — rather than a fixed classical bit, and keep the committed quantum bit in superposition throughout, without detectably deviating from the protocol. This is no advantage if the protocol is used for committing a prediction or some other stand-alone application. Alice can always commit a randomly chosen classical bit in any bit commitment protocol, classical or quantum. But it does allow Alice more general coherent quantum attacks to be used on schemes of which the bit commitment is a sub-protocol — a property which is shared by other classical bit commitment schemes\[10\] and which means that classical cryptographic reductions involving such bit commitments cannot naively be carried over into the quantum arena.

Modulo this freedom, the informal security arguments above carry over to the quantum case. Alice has no cheating strategy by which she can initially commit the qubit $`a|0+b|1`$ and appear to follow through the protocol for a previously agreed number of steps, while actually carrying out operations which give her probability greater than $`|a|^2+O(1/N)`$ of successfully unveiling a $`0`$ or greater than $`|b|^2+O(1/N)`$ of successfully unveiling a $`1`$ at the end of the protocol.

6. Comments

The protocol gives a theoretical solution to the problem of finding bit commitment schemes unconditionally secure over arbitrarily long time intervals. As its implementation requires channel capacity that, for a fixed separation, increases exponentially with the commitment time, it is not a practical solution to the problem of long term bit commitment. For example, taking the security parameter $`m=10`$ and the separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=0.1\mathrm{sec}`$, and assuming $`100`$ gigabaud channels, the number of rounds of iterated commitments presently practical is roughly $`10`$.

For the moment, though, we see the protocol’s main interest as an existence theorem. It demonstrates that taking special relativity into account changes the cryptographic security attainable through information exchanges, and it shows that the interplay between special relativity, cryptographic security and channel capacity is a fertile area for investigation.

The reason relativity helps is simple. In effect, it allows Alice and Bob to construct a communication channel with a time delay which they can both trust, despite their mistrust of the world outside their laboratories. Any trusted time delayed channel allows temporary bit commitment, and the above protocol demonstrates that indefinite bit commitment can then be achieved by recursively iterating bit commitments across the channel.

It is worth noting that trusted, although not perfectly secure, time delay could also be enforced by physical means. Alice and Bob could, for example, watch carrier pigeons going between their laboratories. It could also be enforced by a sequence of computational bounds. Suppose, for example, that Alice and Bob can always be confident of keeping abreast of technological developments, in the sense that at any given time they can find a computational task which they are confident cannot be solved within $`1`$ time unit. They can then, for as long as their channel capacity permits, use the iteration strategy above to achieve indefinitely secure bit commitment from a sequence of standard classical bit commitment protocols which use their temporarily secure bounds and are secure against the receiver. This may, in fact, be a more immediately practical application.

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Ross Anderson, Charles Bennett, Andras Bodor, Gilles Brassard, Jeff Bub, H.F. Chau, Claude Crépeau, Peter Goddard, Hoi-Kwong Lo, Dominic Mayers, Roger Needham, Sandu Popescu, Louis Salvail and John Smolin for extremely helpful discussions and advice. I thank the Royal Society for financial support.

References

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