Multi-party interactive cryptographic key distribution protocol over a public network based on computational ghost imaging

• Main Authors: Li, Y.-X (Author), Wang, S.-F (Author), Wei, N. (Author), Yang, Y. (Author), Yu, W.-K (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2022
• Subjects: Authentication; Binarization processing; Computational ghost imaging; Cryptographic key; Cryptographic key distribution; Identity authentication; Image processing; Interactive joint authentication; Internet protocols; Key distribution; Key-distribution protocols; Multi-party optical communication; Network security; Network-based; Optical communication; Public networks
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 In existing ghost-imaging-based cryptographic key distribution (CKD) protocols, the lack of joint identity authentication leads to potential security risks. Here, under a computational ghost imaging framework, we propose a multi-party interactive CKD protocol over a public network, which sets an intermediary to perform fragment-synthesis-based joint identity authentication. The fragment images can be acquired with high quality via a binarization process. Both simulation and experiments have demonstrated that this proposed protocol can greatly improve the security of communication. Thus, this protocol paves a new way for authentication in multi-party CKD. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd