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Paper 1

Send the Key in Cleartext: Halving Key Consumption while Preserving Unconditional Security in QKD Authentication

Claudia De Lazzari, Francesco Stocco, Edoardo Signorini, Giacomo Fregona, Fernando Chirici, Damiano Giani, Tommaso Occhipinti, Guglielmo Morgari, Alessandro Zavatta, Davide Bacco

Year

2026

Journal

arXiv preprint

DOI

arXiv:2603.25496

arXiv

2603.25496

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols require Information-Theoretically Secure (ITS) authentication of the classical channel to preserve the unconditional security of the distilled key. Standard ITS schemes are based on one-time keys: once a key is used to authenticate a message, it must be discarded. Since QKD requires mutual authentication, two independent one-time keys are typically consumed per round, imposing a non-trivial overhead on the net secure key rate. In this work, we present the authentication-with-response scheme, a novel ITS authentication scheme based on $\varepsilon$-Almost Strongly Universal$_2$ ($\varepsilon$-ASU$_2$) functions, whose IT security can be established in the Universal Composability (UC) framework. The scheme achieves mutual authentication consuming a single one-time key per QKD round, halving key consumption compared to the state-of-the-art.

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Paper 2

A Quantum-Secure Voting Framework Using QKD, Dual-Key Symmetric Encryption, and Verifiable Receipts

Taha M. Mahmoud, Naima Kaabouch

Year

2025

Journal

arXiv preprint

DOI

arXiv:2510.03489

arXiv

2510.03489

Electronic voting systems face growing risks from cyberattacks and data breaches, which are expected to intensify with the advent of quantum computing. To address these challenges, we introduce a quantum-secure voting framework that integrates Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), Dual-Key Symmetric Encryption, and verifiable receipt mechanisms to strengthen the privacy, integrity, and reliability of the voting process. The framework enables voters to establish encryption keys securely, cast encrypted ballots, and verify their votes through receipt-based confirmation, all without exposing the vote contents. To evaluate performance, we simulate both quantum and classical communication channels using the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol. Results demonstrate that the system can process large numbers of votes efficiently with low latency and minimal error rates. This approach offers a scalable and practical path toward secure, transparent, and verifiable electronic voting in the quantum era.

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