'Unbreakable' encryption unveiled

Necuno

Necuno

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Perfect secrecy has come a step closer with the launch of the world's first computer network protected by unbreakable quantum encryption at a scientific conference in Vienna.

The network connects six locations across Vienna and in the nearby town of St Poelten, using 200 km of standard commercial fibre optic cables.

Quantum cryptography is completely different from the kinds of security schemes used on computer networks today.

These are typically based on complex mathematical procedures which are extremely hard for outsiders to crack, but not impossible given sufficient computing resources or time.

But quantum systems use the laws of quantum theory, which have been shown to be inherently unbreakable.

The basic idea of quantum cryptography was worked out 25 years ago by Charles Bennett of IBM and Gilles Brassard of Montreal University, who was in Vienna to see the network in action.

"All quantum security schemes are based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, on the fact that you cannot measure quantum information without disturbing it," he explained.

"Because of that, one can have a communications channel between two users on which it's impossible to eavesdrop without creating a disturbance. An eavesdropper would create a mark on it. That was the key idea."

In practice this means using the ultimate quantum objects: photons, the atoms of light. Incredibly faint beams of light equating to single photons fired a million times a second raced between the nodes in the Vienna network.

Each node, housed in a different Siemens office (Siemens has provided the fibre links), contains a small rack of electronics - boxes about the size of a PC, and a handful of sensitive light detectors.
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full article @
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7661311.stm
 
The attacker may not get access to the data, but neither will the receiver... DOS attacks anyone?
 
Now what if Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is eventually disproved or an alternative is found. Then I presume this Unbreakable system will go out the window.
 
There is no such thing as an unbreakable code ;) I might take longer, but it's never unbreakable
 
This is not some algorithm that protects the data, it is a law of science. If they crack it, they disprove some of the fundamental quantum laws that we know. By cracking I mean not being detected when you look at the data. I'm sure they use traditional encryption on top of the quantum encryption. I'm also normally one of the first to say that they will break a scheme quickly, but this is a whole new ball game. A DOS attack I suppose is certainly possible, but you would need to break into the physical connection somewhere, since this is a point to point solution. As far as I know the only feasible attack is a man in the middle attack, one again you would need access to the physical line, as they use (and need) dedicated fiber lines for this to work.
If try to look or measure the flow of information (in quantum cryptography), you will change it and someone will know.
 
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I've been thinking about this...and the one thing that has me confused is how they plan to use repeaters on the fibre links.:confused: Repeaters would break the system...and one needs them to do long distance fiber links.
 
Yea Nuro is right, if u break this u disprove a physics theory, so i highly doubt that some 17 year old is gonna crack this!!

Anyways it seems pretty cool, i dunno if its unbreakable, but once (and if) Heissenberg is proven/disproven then more about cracking this can be discussed.
 
Turiko said:
No encryption is unbreakable...
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On what do you base your statement? Ordinary encryption can be broken with time, but it might take so long that it is for all purposes unbreakable. We have encryption now, free for download, that will take so long to brute force attack that when you finally succeed, the data is useless (hundreds to thousands of years).

There are three kinds of attacks I can think of: Finding a mathematical vulnerability, human weakness (selling a private key for example), and brute force attacks. Brute force attacks take too long with current schemes, human error can be eliminated with the right security protocols, and mathematical vulnerabilities are rare.

Now, to add to the complication, they throw in a known and proven scientific principle to make it more secure. Not a human conceived idea, but a law of nature. It it gets broken, we have other things to worry about than compromised data, since it turns out we do not know the universe as well as we thought we did.
 
Oh, and before people start using dvd/blu-ray as an example, that is a different scenario: You are trying to hide data from the user, but you are giving him the keys to decrypt it. It is flawed by design. Most DRM systems are flawed by design.
 
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