Unbreakable distributed storage with quantum key distribution network and password-authenticated secret sharing.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Information Security
• Quantum Information

Background:

• Distributed storage systems are crucial for secure, long-term data preservation.
• Secret sharing schemes, like Shamir's (k, n)-threshold scheme, offer information-theoretic security for data.
• Existing schemes often assume perfectly secure data transmission and authentication, which is challenging in practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a totally information-theoretically secure distributed storage system.
• To enhance security by integrating a user-friendly single-password-authenticated secret sharing scheme.
• To ensure secure data transmission using quantum key distribution.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a single-password-authenticated secret sharing scheme.
• Integration of quantum key distribution for secure communication channels.
• Demonstration of the system in a real-world network (Tokyo metropolitan area).

Main Results:

• The proposed system achieves total information-theoretic security for distributed data storage.
• The system successfully demonstrated secure data transmission over a 90 km range.
• The integration of password-authenticated secret sharing enhances usability without compromising security.

Conclusions:

• A novel, secure distributed storage system has been developed and demonstrated.
• The system provides robust protection against data breaches and unauthorized access.
• This approach offers a practical solution for highly secure data storage and transmission.