Privacy Amplification, Private States, and the Uncertainty Principle

We show that three principle means of treating privacy amplification in quantum key distribution, private state distillation, classical privacy amplification, and via the uncertainty principle, are equivalent and interchangeable. By adapting the security proof based on the uncertainty principle, we construct a new protocol for private state distillation which we prove is identical to standard classical privacy amplification. Underlying this approach is a new characterization of private states, related to their standard formulation by the uncertainty principle, which gives a more physical understanding of security in quantum key distribution.