Asymmetric delay attack on an entanglement-based bidirectional clock synchronization protocol

We demonstrate an attack on a clock synchronization protocol that attempts to detect tampering of the synchronization channel using polarization-entangled photon pairs. The protocol relies on a symmetrical channel, where propagation delays do not depend on propagation direction, for correctly deduci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2019-07
Main Authors: Lee, Jianwei, Shen, Lijiong, Cerè, Alessandro, Troupe, James, Lamas-Linares, Antia, Kurtsiefer, Christian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clock synchronization
Clocks
Clocks & watches
Electromagnetic fields
Entanglement
Error detection
Polarization
Propagation
Reciprocity
Time synchronization
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Description
Summary:We demonstrate an attack on a clock synchronization protocol that attempts to detect tampering of the synchronization channel using polarization-entangled photon pairs. The protocol relies on a symmetrical channel, where propagation delays do not depend on propagation direction, for correctly deducing the offset between clocks -- a condition that could be manipulated with optical circulators, which rely on static magnetic fields to break the reciprocity of propagating electromagnetic fields. Despite the polarization transformation induced within a set of circulators, our attack creates an error in time synchronization while successfully evading detection.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1907.09661