Seth Lloyd
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
Seth Lloyd (left) with Renato Renner
Date
12 November 2008
Title
Quantum Private Queries
Abstract
Alice wants to ask Bob a question. Bob wants to give Alice the answer. But there's a catch: Alice doesn't want Bob to know what the question is. Classically, the only ways for Alice to make a provably private query are unwieldy. For example, Alice sends Bob a billion questions, of which her original question is one, and has him answer all of them. Quantum mechanically, however, Bob can answer Alice's question and provide her with a guarantee that he doesn't know what her question is. This talk shows how.