- Platform
- edX
- Provider
- California Institute of Technology and Delft University of Technology
- Effort
- 6 to 8 hours/week
- Length
- 10 weeks
- Language
- English
- Credentials
- Paid Certificate Available
- Course Link
Overview
How can you tell a secret when everyone is able to listen in? In this course, you will learn how to use quantum effects, such as quantum entanglement and uncertainty, to implement cryptographic tasks with levels of security that are impossible to achieve classically.
This interdisciplinary course is an introduction to the exciting field of quantum cryptography, developed in collaboration between QuTech at Delft University of Technology and the California Institute of Technology.
By the end of the course you will
What you'll learn
Taught by
Thomas Vidick, Stephanie Wehner and Guest Lecturers
How can you tell a secret when everyone is able to listen in? In this course, you will learn how to use quantum effects, such as quantum entanglement and uncertainty, to implement cryptographic tasks with levels of security that are impossible to achieve classically.
This interdisciplinary course is an introduction to the exciting field of quantum cryptography, developed in collaboration between QuTech at Delft University of Technology and the California Institute of Technology.
By the end of the course you will
- Be armed with a fundamental toolbox for understanding, designing and analyzing quantum protocols.
- Understand quantum key distribution protocols.
- Understand how untrusted quantum devices can be tested.
- Be familiar with modern quantum cryptography – beyond quantum key distribution.
What you'll learn
- Fundamental ideas of quantum cryptography
- Cryptographic concepts and tools: security definitions, the min-entropy, privacy amplification
- Protocols and proofs of security for quantum key distribution
- The basics of device-independent quantum cryptography
- Modern quantum cryptographic tasks and protocols
Syllabus
Optional Background Videos:
Week 6: Quantum key distribution protocols
Week 7: Quantum cryptography using untrusted devices
Week 8: Quantum cryptography beyond key-distribution
Optional Background Videos:
- Qubits
- Quantum gates
- Measuring qubits in a basis
- Introduction and overview
- Fundamental concepts of quantum information: pure and mixed quantum states, the partial trace, classical-quantum states, generalized measurements
- Encrypting quantum bits with the quantum one-time pad
- Separable states, entangled states and purification
- Sharing a classical secret using quantum states
- Looking ahead to quantum key distribution: verifying entanglement using a Bell experiment
- Monogamy of entanglement
- What it means to be ignorant: trace distance and its use in security definitions
- The (min)-entropy
- Uncertainty principles as a guessing game
- Introduction to privacy amplification
- Strong randomness extractors
- Randomness extraction using two-universal hashing
- A construction of two-universal hash functions
- Introduction to key distribution: the challenge of being correct and secure
- Key distribution over a noisy channel
Week 6: Quantum key distribution protocols
- BB84 Protocol
- Warmup: Security against a classical eavesdropper
- E91 Protocol: purifying protocols using entanglement
- Quantum key distribution: definitions and concepts
Week 7: Quantum cryptography using untrusted devices
- Introduction to device-independent quantum cryptography
- Testing devices using a Bell experiment
- Security of device-independent quantum key distribution against collective attacks
Week 8: Quantum cryptography beyond key-distribution
- Introduction and overview
- Two-party cryptography: bit commitment and oblivious transfer
- Impossibility of bit commitment
- Weak commitments and coin tossing
- The noisy storage model
- A simple protocol for bit commitment in the noisy-storage model
- Security from quantum uncertainty
- A universal primitive: weak string erasure
- Position verification from weak string erasure
- Sharing a quantum secret
- Secure computations on a remote quantum computer
Taught by
Thomas Vidick, Stephanie Wehner and Guest Lecturers