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Quantum computation offers unique properties that cannot be paralleled by conventional computers. In particular, reading qubits may change their state and thus signal the presence of an intruder. This paper develops a proof-of-concept for a quantum honeypot that allows the detection of intruders on reading. The idea is to place quantum sentinels within all resources offered within the honeypot. Additional to classical honeypots, honeypots with quantum sentinels can trace the reading activity of the intruder within any resource. Sentinels can be set to be either visible and accessible to the intruder or hidden and unknown to intruders. Catching the intruder using quantum sentinels has a low theoretical probability per sentinel, but the probability can be increased arbitrarily higher by adding more sentinels. The main contributions of this paper are that the monitoring of the intruder can be carried out at the level of the information unit, such as the bit, and quantum monitoring activity is fully hidden from the intruder. Practical experiments, as performed in this research, show that the error rate of quantum computers has to be considerably reduced before implementations of this concept are feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a perimeter detection scheme based on the quantum physical properties of photons. Existing perimeter intrusion detection schemes, if using light, rely on the classical properties of light only. Our quantum sensor network uses the quantum property of spatial superposition of photons, meaning that a photon can simultaneously follow two different paths after going through a beam splitter. Using multiple Mach–Zehnder interferometers, an entire web of paths can be generated, such that one single photon occupies them all. If an intruder violates this web in some arbitrary point, the entire photon superposition is destroyed, the photon does not self-interfere any more and this event is detected by measurements. For one single photon, the intruder detection probability is limited theoretically but can be increased arbitrarily with the usage of a sequence of photons. We show both theoretical bounds as well as practical results of the proposed schemes. The practical results are obtained by simulation experiments on IBM Quantum platforms. The benefits of our quantum approach are: low power, invisibility to potential intruders, scalability and easy practical implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of quantum computers on Bitcoin mining. The shift in computational paradigm towards quantum computation allows the entire search space of the golden nonce to be queried at once by exploiting quantum superpositions and entanglement. Using Grover's algorithm, a solution can be extracted in time O ( 2 256 / t) , where t is the target value for the nonce. This is better using a square root over the classical search algorithm that requires O (2 256 / t) tries. If sufficiently large quantum computers are available for the public, mining activity in the classical sense becomes obsolete, as quantum computers always win. Without considering quantum noise, the size of the quantum computer needs to be ≈ 10 4 qubits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a different approach to pinpoint the causes for which an unconditionally secure quantum bit commitment protocol cannot be realized, beyond the technical details on which the proof of Mayers' no-go theoremis constructed. We have adopted the tools of quantum entropy analysis to investigate the conditions under which the security properties of quantum bit commitment can be circumvented. Our study has revealed that cheating the binding property requires the quantum system acting as the safe to harbor the same amount of uncertainty with respect to both observers (Alice and Bob) as well as the use of entanglement. Our analysis also suggests that the ability to cheat one of the two fundamental properties of bit commitment by any of the two participants depends on how much information is leaked from one side of the system to the other and how much remains hidden from the other participant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]