On Standards and Specifications in Quantum Cryptography

Abstract

Quantum cryptography is going to find practically useful applications. Recently some first quantum cryptographic solutions became available on the market. For clients it is important to be able to compare the quality and properties of the proposed products. To this end one needs to elaborate on specifications and standards of solutions in quantum cryptography. We propose and discuss a list of characteristics for the specification, which includes numerical evaluations of the security of solution and can be considered as a standard for quantum key distribution solutions. The list is based on the average time of key generation depending on some parameters. In the simplest case for the user the list includes three characteristics: the security degree, the length of keys and the key refresh rate.