Everyday life on the internet is insecure. Hackers can break into bank accounts or steal digital identities. Driven by AI, attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Quantum cryptography promises more effective protection. It makes communication secure against eavesdropping by relying on the laws of quantum physics. However, the path toward a quantum internet is still fraught with technical hurdles.
  • peopleproblems@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    8 hours ago

    This is a big breakthrough. If they can do it at 10m then the scale is unlimited.

    It essentially should circumvent MITM attacks.

  • Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    5 hours ago

    Quantum encryption will be “broken” the same way as conventional crypto is: side channels. It’s nice to have, but it doesn’t solve the most common attacks.

  • r00ty@kbin.life
    142·
    11 hours ago

    I think my question on all this would be whether this would ultimately cause problems in terms of data integrity.

    Currently most amplifiers for digital information are going to capture the information in the light, probably strip off any modulation to get to the raw data. Then re-modulate that using a new emitter.

    The advantages of doing this over just amplifying the original light signal are the same reason switches/routers are store and forward (or at least decode to binary and re-modulate). When you decode the data from the modulated signal and then reproduce it, you are removing any noise that was present and reproducing a clean signal again.

    If you just amplify light (or electrical) signals “as-is”, then you generally add noise every time you do this reducing the SNR a small amount. After enough times the signal will become non-recoverable.

    So I guess my question is, does the process also have the same issue of an ultimate limit in how often you can re-transmit the signal without degradation.

    • Xbeam@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      11 hours ago

      The way I interpreted the article, you aren’t amplifying the signal but transferring it. Same as store and forward. I think that implies that degradation is not a problem as long as the new photon profile was a match. The real problem is matching the profile which they only managed at 10 meters.

      • r00ty@kbin.life
        3·
        10 hours ago

        Yep. I also valid concerns. But those seem to be their next steps. I just wondered if there would be degradation. You wouldn’t even be able to tell until it reached the destination.

        Definitely interesting stuff.

        • r00ty@kbin.life
          19·
          12 hours ago

          Pretty sure this was made clear in the article but… I’ll outline the little I know on the subject as a complete layman.

          Currently we have been able to use quantum effects to create single runs of fibre that cannot be intercepted. That is, if the data is intercepted by any known means the receiver will be able to detect this.

          The shortcoming of this method, is that of course when you need to amplify the signal, that’s generally a “store and forward” operation and thus would also break this system’s detection. You could I guess perform the same operation wherever it is amplified, but it’s then another point in which monitoring could happen. If you want 1 trusted sender, 1 trusted receiver and nothing in between, this is a problem.

          What this article is saying, is they have found a way to amplify the information without ever “reading” it. Therefore keeping the data integrity showing as “unseen” (for want of a better word). As such this will allow “secure” (I guess?) fibre runs of greater distances in the future.

          Now the article does go into some detail about how this works and why. But, for the basic aspect of why this is a good and useful thing. This is pretty much what you need to know.

            • Grimy@lemmy.worldEnglish
              7·
              9 hours ago

              Bro, read. It’s literally in his comment.

              If the data is intercepted, the receiver knowns. It’s a huge advantage.

            • r00ty@kbin.life
              11·
              11 hours ago

              This is for communication, not computation or even cryptography. The point in transferring it this way is so as to maintain the unseen property of the photon.