Quantum readout of Physical Unclonable Functions

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are physical structures that are hard to clone and have a unique challenge-response behaviour. In this paper we propose a new security primitive, the quantum-readout PUF (QR-PUF): a classical PUF which is challenged using a quantum state, and whose response is also a quantum state. By the no-cloning property of unknown quantum states, attackers cannot intercept challenges or responses without noticeably disturbing the readout process. Thus, a verifier who sends quantum states as challenges and receives the correct quantum states back can be certain that he is probing a specific QR-PUF without disturbances, even in the QR-PUF is far away ‘in the field’ and under hostile control. For PUFs whose information content is not exceedingly large, all currently known PUF-based authentication and anti-counterfeiting schemes require trusted readout devices in the field. Our quantum readout scheme has no such requirement. We show how the QR-PUF authentication can be interwoven with Quantum Key Exchange (QKE), leading to an authenticated QKE protocol between two parties with the special property that it requires no a priori secret shared by the two parties, and that the quantum channel is the authenticated channel, allowing for an unauthenticated classical channel.