Quantum cryptography now a reality

DATA SECURITY worries could soon be an anxiety of the past as in a world-first discovery quantum cryptography is used to form an unbreakable encryption.

Around 41 partners from 12 European countries have been working with academics from the University of Bristol since 2004 towards this ultimate goal – yesterday was the first time a commercial communication network was demonstrated in Vienna using this 'unbreakable' encryption.

This kind of security will be of great use to users such as government agencies and financial institutions but could also potentially allow online transactions to be PIN protected using secret bits shared with a bank to encode the secret number.

Quantum cryptography provides confidential communication by sending streams of photons – their measurement by the legitimate parties and the subsequent post-processing of the measurement data – the result is a cryptic key made up of identical random “bit strings”.

The reason no one can eavesdrop on this sent information is due to the fundamental laws of quantum physics which ensures that “any measurement leaves indelible traces behind” – this means that if someone was to disturb this information, they would leave a trace and thus disturb the key, so basically trying to snoop would only lead to revealing yourself.

Quantum cryptography is notoriously the hardest and most complex system to even begin to hack into – yet even if they tried, they would undoubtedly leave a calling card.

We wonder if Einstein will be proud to know that his amazing discovery is still being utilised to help with issues to this day.