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GROUP REPORT
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD);
Vocabulary
Disclaimer
The present document has been produced and approved by the Group Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) ETSI Industry
Specification Group (ISG) and represents the views of those members who participated in this ISG.
It does not necessarily represent the views of the entire ETSI membership.
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2 ETSI GR QKD 007 V1.1.1 (2018-12)
Reference
DGR/QKD-0007_Ontology
Keywords
Quantum Key Distribution, vocabulary
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Contents
Intellectual Property Rights . 5
Foreword . 5
Modal verbs terminology . 5
1 Scope . 6
2 References . 6
2.1 Normative references . 6
2.2 Informative references . 6
3 Definition of terms and abbreviations . 7
3.1 Terms . 7
A . 7
B . 7
C . 7
D . 8
E . 9
F to G . 9
H . 9
I . 9
J . 9
K . 9
L . 9
M . 10
N to O . 10
P . 10
Q . 11
R . 11
S . 11
T . 12
U to V . 12
W . 13
X . 13
Y . 13
Z . 13
3.2 Abbreviations . 13
A . 13
B . 13
C . 13
D . 14
E . 14
F . 14
G . 14
H . 14
I . 14
J . 15
K . 15
L . 15
M . 15
N . 15
O . 15
P . 15
Q . 15
R . 16
S . 16
T . 16
U . 16
V . 16
ETSI
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4 ETSI GR QKD 007 V1.1.1 (2018-12)
W . 16
X to Z . 16
Annex A: Authors & contributors . 17
History . 18
ETSI
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5 ETSI GR QKD 007 V1.1.1 (2018-12)
Intellectual Property Rights
Essential patents
IPRs essential or potentially essential to normative deliverables may have been declared to ETSI. The information
pertaining to these essential IPRs, if any, is publicly available for ETSI members and non-members, and can be found
in ETSI SR 000 314: "Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Essential, or potentially Essential, IPRs notified to ETSI in
respect of ETSI standards", which is available from the ETSI Secretariat. Latest updates are available on the ETSI Web
server (https://ipr.etsi.org/).
Pursuant to the ETSI IPR Policy, no investigation, including IPR searches, has been carried out by ETSI. No guarantee
can be given as to the existence of other IPRs not referenced in ETSI SR 000 314 (or the updates on the ETSI Web
server) which are, or may be, or may become, essential to the present document.
Trademarks
The present document may include trademarks and/or tradenames which are asserted and/or registered by their owners.
ETSI claims no ownership of these except for any which are indicated as being the property of ETSI, and conveys no
right to use or reproduce any trademark and/or tradename. Mention of those trademarks in the present document does
not constitute an endorsement by ETSI of products, services or organizations associated with those trademarks.
Foreword
This Group Report (GR) has been produced by ETSI Industry Specification Group (ISG) Group Quantum Key
Distribution (QKD).
Modal verbs terminology
In the present document "should", "should not", "may", "need not", "will", "will not", "can" and "cannot" are to be
interpreted as described in clause 3.2 of the ETSI Drafting Rules (Verbal forms for the expression of provisions).
"must" and "must not" are NOT allowed in ETSI deliverables except when used in direct citation.
ETSI
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1 Scope
The present document collects together definitions and abbreviations used in relation to Quantum Key Distribution
(QKD) and ETSI ISG-QKD documents. QKD introduces new concepts and technologies to the field of
telecommunications and considerable related vocabulary. Many terms derive from the wider fields of quantum physics
and classical cryptography but in some cases terms assume a modified or more specific meaning when applied to QKD.
The main objectives of the present document are:
• to improve the consistency with which terminology and abbreviations are used within ISG-QKD documents;
• to provide a reference document to reduce confusion by readers who may not be familiar with QKD.
Most definitions and abbreviations come from ISG-QKD Group Specifications and Group Reports or are expected to be
used in future documents. The terms included have been selected to focus the present document on those that are
expected to be of widespread use or where consistency is felt to be particularly important, e.g. due to a specific risk of
confusion. Terms introduced in a single ISG-QKD document for a specific purpose that is local to that document are
excluded unless of particular importance.
2 References
2.1 Normative references
Normative references are not applicable in the present document.
2.2 Informative references
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
The following referenced documents are not necessary for the application of the present document but they assist the
user with regard to a particular subject area.
[i.1] C. H. Bennett and G. Brassard: "Quantum cryptography: Public key distribution and coin tossing.
Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Computers Systems and Signal Processing",
Bangalore India, pp. 175-179, December (1984).
[i.2] F. Grosshans and P. Grangier: "Continuous Variable Quantum Cryptography Using Coherent
States", Phys. Rev. Lett., 88(5), 057902 (2002).
[i.3] J. F. Clauser, M. A. Horne, A. Shimony and R. A. Holt: "Proposed Experiment to Test Local
Hidden-Variable Theories", Phys. Rev. Lett. 23, 880 (1969).
[i.4] V. Scarani, H. Bechmann-Pasquinucci, N. J. Cerf, M. Dušek, N. Lütkenhaus and M. Peev: "The
security of practical quantum key distribution", Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 81, July-
September 2009, pp. 1301-1350 and references therein.
[i.5] Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? A. Einstein,
B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen Phys. Rev. 47, 777 – Published 15 May 1935 by American Physical
Society.
NOTE: Available at https://journals.aps.org/pr/pdf/10.1103/PhysRev.47.777.
ETSI
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3 Definition of terms and abbreviations
3.1 Terms
A
adversary: malicious entity in cryptography whose aim is to prevent the users of the cryptosystem from achieving their
goals
after-pulse probability: probability that a detector registers a false detection event in the absence of illumination,
conditional on a detection event, due to incident photons of stated mean photon number, in a preceding detection gate
Alice: quantum information sender/transmitter in a QKD system
ancilla: auxiliary (quantum mechanical) system
Application Programming Interface (API): interface implemented by a software program to be able to interact with
other software programs
attenuation: reduction in intensity of the light beam (or signal)
authentication: act of establishing or confirming that some message indeed originated from the entity it is claimed to
come from and was not modified during transmission
NOTE: Used as short term for message authentication.
B
bit error rate: percentage of bits with errors divided by the total number of bits that have been transmitted, received or
processed over a given time period
Bob: quantum information receiver in a QKD system
C
classical channel: communication channel that is used by two communicating parties for exchanging data encoded in a
form that may be non-destructively read and fully reproduced
classical public channel: insecure communication channel, for example broadcast radio or internet, where all messages
sent over this channel become available to all parties, including adversaries
clock rate: number of repetition events per time unit, e.g. number of signals sent per time unit
collective attack: attack where an adversary lets each individual signal interact with an ancilla each, but can perform
joint operation on all the ancillas to extract information
composability: property that the output of one cryptographic protocol can be used by another cryptographic protocol in
such a way that the security proof can be done for each protocol independently
compromise: unauthorized disclosure, modification, substitution, or use of sensitive data or an unauthorized breach of
physical security
cryptography: art and science of keeping data or messages secure
cryptographic algorithm: well-defined computational procedure that takes variable inputs, which may include
cryptographic keys, and produces an output
cryptographic boundary: explicitly defined continuous perimeter that establishes the physical bounds of a QKD
module and contains all the hardware and software components of a QKD module
ETSI
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cryptographic hash function: computationally efficient function that maps bi
...