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There are many security systems out there. Many have claimed to be unbreakable, until one day they are broken. Now a new network has entered the scene that claims to be unbreakable. It’s called quantum cryptography.
This system works off of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This principle means that when someone tries to view information on a network encrypted by this system, the act of viewing disturbs the network, causing it to change and therefore makes such intrusions obvious. Hence the “unbreakable” claims.
I’m not certain on the science here, but it has something to do with the photons becoming erratic, which makes the line shut down and redirect to another one, without disturbing the flow of information. Confused yet? I sure am. But it sounds cool to me!
[via Gizmodo]
One Response to “Quantum Cryptography is said to be “unbreakable””
PhysKid October 10, 2008
Hi
I came across this looking for news articles related to this subject.
The science is not that difficult to understand. One of the earliest principles of studying the wave/particle duality of quanta (read: packets of light which are made up of photons) states that the mere ability to measure a particle will cause the particle to experience a shift. So that if you measured a still particle at a certain place at a certain time, any subsequent measurement will yield different values, even if the particle is not moving. Read that again to be clear. This why quantum mechanics is amazing and difficult. And this is only part of the intro to it. De Broglie, Schroedinger and Heisenberg worked to identify why this occurs in the mid 20’s and found that it is because a particle behaves as both a wave and a particle, each of the systems experiencing it’s own behavior. Mathematically, all you can do to really study the position or momentum of a particle, is to resign it into a probability density. That is to say “there is a probability this particle is here or there, or going this fast or in this direction”. From the probability density you can calculate expectation values which will give you intervals of deviation of the particle. This is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. In a nutshell, of course.
Unfortunately, you need fiber optic cables to send and receive these encrypted photons. So you are basically talking about securing, at this point, local networks or networks that are all physically connected by the cables. But then, if you’re computers are right next to each other, what’s the point of having such tight security? lol…
Neutral