Radjaïdjah Blog

Is a book relating the history of quantum key distribution needed? For sure.

As quantum key distribution (QKD) becomes more and more used to encrypt data on networks, there is an emerging need for a popular account of its history. QKD is, after all, the first real-world application taking advantage of the quantum properties of particles at the individual level. Hence, such a book is craving to be authored. The outline could be along the lines of^[1]:

1. Motivational introduction - How real-world quantum key distribution was used in referendums in Geneva or during the 2010 soccer world cup in South Africa.
2. Brief history of classical cryptography - as described in Simon Singh's Code Book and in Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography.
   1. The first steps of cryptography - Caesar, Vigenère, steganography, etc
   2. Cryptography goes professional - 20th Century: encryption systems become weapons (WWII with Enigma, DES and PGP later)
   3. A short review of modern mathematical cryptography
      • Private key cryptography: one-time pad, Blowfish, AES, ...
      • Public key cryptography: Diffie-Hellmann, El-Gamal, RSA
3. The advent of physical cryptography
   1. An anecdotal side effect of QM formalism - Wiesner70, BB84, Ekert91
   2. The cornerstone of QKD - the no-cloning theorem
   3. Overview of a QKD scheme e.g. BB84; from the photon source to the sifted key
   4. Ideas underlying security proofs - what is the QBER, why it is important
   5. What isn't QKD
      • QKD isn't a method for encryption, but for key distribution, to be combined with symmetric encryption
      • QKD's security isn't unconditional (problem of authentication, QKA)
   6. History of QKD achievements - in terms of speed, distances...
4. From laboratories to commercial systems
   1. Who is interested in QKD
   2. Arguments in favour of QKD
      • time-vulnerability of asymmetric encryption
      • detection of eavesdroppers
   3. History of pioneer start-ups - idQ, MagiQ, Smartquantum, ...
5. Attacks against QKD: quantum hacking
   1. Simple attacks, simple remedies
   2. Security holes due to implementation
   3. Attacks on commercial systems as a proof of maturity
   4. Competition between defenders and attackers
6. Connections
   1. Bit commitment
   2. Quantum private queries
   3. Positional authentication
   4. Teleportation
7. Perspectives
   1. The problem of the unknown dimension of Alice and Bob's Hilbert space
   2. Device-independent QKD - connection with nonlocality and violation of Bell inequalities
   3. Post-modern security of QKD
8. Technical appendixes
   1. Formalism of BB84
   2. RNG, QRNG, DIQRNG

In the end, the remaining question is: who will write it?