Internship on Post-Quantum Cryptography

Description of the internship

Quantum Key Distribution is a task where two users, Alice and Bob, exchange a cryptographic keys with a security based on the laws of Physics, and is one of the most advanced applications of Quantum Cryptography. This means that Alice and Bob can exchange a key while ensuring, with quantum physics, that any adversary have no information on that key.

In order to do this, Alice and Bob share a Quantum Channel, that is totally public and a Classical Channel, that is public but authenticated. This authentication requires however cryptographic encryption, which is an issue since the purpose of QKD is actually to exchange cryptographic keys. To tackle this issue, since the channel only requires encryption during the key exchange and not everlasting security, post-quantum algorithms, which are believed to be more resilient to quantum computers, have been proposed.

The goal of this internship will be so study the feasibility of post-quantum cryptography for QKD authentication, to evaluate the different post-quantum algorithms, and to implement one in the CV-QKD software. The authentication scheme will be then tested on real-life experiments.

Required profile

We are looking for highly motivated students, with strong coding skills for a 4 to 6 months internship. The coding language is python, but we are not closed to implementations with other languages as long as an interface with python is provided. A background in cryptography would be appreciated.

Knowledge on quantum physics or quantum technologies is however not required.

Team

The internship will take place in the LIP6, hosted in the campus of Jussieu of Sorbonne Université in Paris, and more specifically the intern will evolve, in the QI team that is composed of both theorists and experimentalists working on state-of-the-art quantum technologies and protocols. The intern will join the CV-QKD subteam, with the goal of implementing the authentication mechanism on a real CV-QKD experiment.

Discussions with other teams of LIP6, with more knowledge on classical cryptography will also take place.

Application

For application, please send a résumé and motivation letter to Yoann.Pietri@lip6.fr. We are also open for visits in the lab !