Past exam of the quantum information course of the University of Cambridge 2015 Paper 1 2 f Solution 2026-10-20
This is an entanglement-based quantum key distribution scheme of the type proposed by Artur K. Ekert.[ref]
Quantum cryptography based on Bell's theorem by Artur K. Ekert. 1991 primary proposal: Bell correlations used to test a key-distribution channel
The measurements generate correlated random data; Alice does not choose a message by choosing their random outcomes.After the measurements, Alice and Bob announce their basis choices over an authenticated public channel. They retain the pairs with equal axes, here and , and Bob flips his outcome signs to match Alice's bits. They sacrifice a random subset for error estimation and use the appropriate other setting combinations to estimate . In the ideal source the same-axis bits match after the flip and ; the specified intercept-resend attack cannot reproduce that value.
A practical protocol includes information reconciliation, an accounting of information leaked publicly, and privacy amplification. It must abort when its statistical security conditions fail. Authentication is essential: a completely unauthenticated public channel permits a man-in-the-middle attack. A Bell-violation observation alone, without sampling, device and adversary assumptions and a finite-key analysis, is not a proof that Eve knows no key bits.
With a sufficiently uniform secret shared key of the required length, Alice can send publicly using a one-time pad; Bob recovers . The pad must be secret, as long as the protected message, and never reused. A complete security proof makes the probability or distinguishing advantage of failure small under stated assumptions. The ideal exam correlations diagnose the stated attack; they do not provide an unconditional guarantee against every attack or implementation fault.