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Euro boffins come up with unbreakable encryption

by on10 October 2008

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All to do theoretical dead cats


Boffins working
at the department of "this means nothing to me" at Vienna University have developed a computer network protected by unbreakable quantum encryption.

The network connects six locations across Vienna and a nearby town and has 200 km of standard commercial fiber optic cables. The BBC helpfully says that quantum systems "use the laws of quantum theory, which have been shown to be inherently unbreakable." Yes, "because ye canna change the laws of physics, captain, otherwise they would not be laws."

Quantum security schemes are based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which is based on the fact that you cannot measure quantum information.

However, it is impossible to have a communications channel between two users on which it's impossible to eavesdrop without creating a disturbance. Each node contains a small rack of electronic boxes about the size of a PC, a handful of sensitive light detectors and a cat which may or may not be alive.

From the detected photons, a secret numerical key is built which encodes the user's data. No one can know the key without revealing who they are. When an intruder listens on the quantum exchange, photons became more scrambled than an egg in a food processor and the rise in the error rate at the node detectors signalled the attack, causing the dead or alive cat to meow.

The system automatically shuts down without being compromised or God needing to throw any dice.

We made it up about the cats, by the way.

More here.


Last modified on 11 October 2008
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