Quantum Handshake
What do quantum approaches to establishing a shared secret actually guarantee, under which assumptions, and where do those assumptions break?
Background
Classical key exchange rests on problems believed to be computationally hard. That belief is an assumption about the state of the art, not a proof.
Quantum approaches replace the computational assumption with a physical one — that measurement disturbs the system being measured, and that disturbance is detectable.
The literature is mature in places and contested in others. Our first job is to read it accurately rather than to add to it.
Literature
Reading themes rather than a citation list — the bibliography is maintained by the group, not published here.
Foundational key distribution protocols
Read closely enough to implement, not just to summarise.
Security proofs and their assumptions
Where each proof holds, and what it quietly requires.
Device-independent approaches
What changes when you stop trusting your own hardware.
Implementation and side channels
The gap between the protocol and the physical device.
Exploration
Reproduce textbook protocol behaviour in simulation and verify it matches the stated expectations.
Introduce an eavesdropper under a stated model and measure whether detection behaves as the theory predicts.
Record every assumption we had to make to get a simulation running. That list is itself a finding.
Experiments
- Baseline protocol simulationrunningTextbook conditions, no noise, no adversary.
- Intercept-and-resend under a stated modelplannedDetection rate against theoretical expectation.
- Noise sensitivity sweepplannedWhere simulated results stop resembling the idealised case.
Analysis
There is nothing to analyse yet. Analysis appears here once there are experimental results worth arguing about — and not before.
Paper
No paper is written, submitted or under review. If this project produces a contribution worth defending, that is where it would appear.
Where it stands
IDEA
CompleteScope agreed: understand before attempting anything original.
LITERATURE
In progressSystematic reading, annotation and weekly discussion.
EXPERIMENT
Not startedSimulation under explicitly stated assumptions.
ANALYSIS
Not startedWhat the results support — and what they do not.
PAPER
Not startedOnly if there is a contribution worth defending.
Open to
Anyone willing to read a hard paper twice and present it to the group
Simulation contributors comfortable with Python
Someone to maintain the annotated bibliography
Accuracy note · This is an ongoing student research initiative. Nothing on this page is a proven result, a peer-reviewed finding or an established contribution to the field, and none of it should be cited as one.