Biblio

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a technique for sharing encryption keys between two adjacent nodes. It provides unconditional secure communication based on the laws of physics. From the viewpoint of network research, QKD is considered to be a component for providing secure communication in network systems. A QKD network enables each node to exchange encryption keys with arbitrary nodes. However previous research did not focus on the processing speed of the key management method essential for a QKD network. This paper focuses on the key management method assuming a high-speed QKD system for which we clarify the design, propose a high-speed method, and evaluate the throughput. The proposed method consists of four modules: (1) local key manager handling the keys generated by QKD, (2) one-time pad tunnel manager establishing the transparent encryption link, (3) global key manager generating the keys for application communication, and (4) web API providing keys to the application. The proposed method was implemented in software and evaluated by emulating QKD key generation and application key consumption. The evaluation result reveals that it is capable of handling the encryption keys at a speed of 414 Mb/s, 185 Mb/s, 85 Mb/s and 971 Mb/s, for local key manager, one-time pad tunnel manager, global key manager and web API, respectively. These are sufficient for integration with a high-speed QKD system. Furthermore, the method allows the high-speed QKD system consisting of two nodes to expand corresponding to the size of the QKD network without losing the speed advantage.

This paper establishes a probability model of multiple paths scheme of quantum key distribution with public nodes among a set of paths which are used to transmit the key between the source node and the destination node. Then in order to be used in universal net topologies, combining with the key routing in the QKD network, the algorithm of the multiple paths scheme of key distribution we propose includes two major aspects: one is an approach which can confirm the number and the distance of the selection of paths, and the other is the strategy of stochastic paths with labels that can decrease the number of public nodes and avoid the phenomenon that the old scheme may produce loops and often get the nodes apart from the destination node father than current nodes. Finally, the paper demonstrates the rationality of the probability model and strategies about the algorithm.