Quantum cryptography: now ready for space travel
By Darren Murph 
posted May 4th 2009 7:37AM
posted May 4th 2009 7:37AM
It's been awhile since we've heard of any major advancements in the world of quantum cryptography, but at long last the silence is being broken by a squad of jubilant Austrian physicists. As the story goes, a team from Austria's Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) managed to send "entangled photons" 90 miles between the Spanish islands of Las Palmas and the Balearics. Calling the ephemeral test successful, the crew has boldly asserted that it's now feasible to send "this kind of unbreakable encrypted communication through space using satellites." Funny -- last we remember, quantum cryptography still had a few kinks to work through here beneath the stratosphere.
those darned tangled photons. Can't they detangle them?
Sure, lets me do a phone call to Q.
"unbreakable encrypted communication"
Like we've never heard THAT claim before...
Yes we have. But I think this time we're jumping very far ahead of the crackers on this one.
I thought the deal with QC was not that it's unbreakable, just that you can't try to break it without letting everyone know something is going on. You can't try to break it without analysing the signal, but unlike electronics when you analyse a quantum signal you alter it, so if the sender and receiver spot someone eavesdropping on it they just break off communication and try again some other time.
I'd like to see these guys try and untangle the spaghetti behind my PC...
I'll take some...with mothballs and a dusting of bunnies please.
That means Tankado is still alive...that guy must've been a double.
I wish they told us how to reproduce the experiment.
I wish KFC told us what the secret recipe is.
msg and salt
Yay, my university gets mentioned at Engadget :D
Will it run on the $10 computer from India?
That and play Crisis.
These guys are from Austria and they did the experiement between holiday resorts that just so happen to be popular with Austrians?
Sounds like a boondoggle expedition to a sunny climate in the middle of winter.
They actually made the breakthrough seven months ago; the reason for the long silence is that the quantum algorithm gained sentience and it's taken this long just to get a message through its encryption, at the cost of almost a dozen lives.
Great, now fucking Noein is going to come and destroy La'cryma.
I don't quite see who would need to communicate in this way, only time it would be needed is if some power mongers were doing things so against the law and foul that even they start to worry people find out, and that even though the people have no power and generally don't give a shit and are gullible like mad, and compliant like medieval slaves.
banks?
Ah of course!
When can I start printing 2 Big Macs, super sized fries, and a diet coke?
Now they need to send one of the entangled photons through the event horizon of a black hole and measure what happens to the other. It's the only way we'll ever know what's on the other side.
"Your mission is to access the feed from this satellite which is protected by quantum encryption. Marshall will brief you on optech."
"Uh, hi everyone. Right, so if you'll direct your attention to this really groovy pair of sunglasses... you'll see the concealed quantum duplicator. And if you push here... they shoot lasers!"