[cap-talk] [off-topic] Quantum Encryption Implementation Broken

[David-Sarah Hopwood]

John Carlson wrote:
> Encryption appears to be a joke!

No. Work on *quantum* encryption is often a thinly veiled excuse to do basic
physics research. Some of that is very valuable research; it's just a pity
that funding bodies are so reluctant to fund anything that is not hyped as
having immediate application. The same applies to quantum computation.

> Subject: Quantum Encryption Implementation Broken
> Source: Slashdot

I don't think anyone here believes everything they read on Slashdot, so it
would be redundant to warn against that.

>> Author: timothy
>>
>> I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Professor Johannes Skaar's
>> Quantum Hacking group at NTNU have found a new way to break quantum encryption.
>> Even though quantum encryption is theoretically perfect, real hardware isn't,
>> and they exploit these flaws. Their technique relies on a particular way of
>> blinding the single photon detectors so that they're able to perform an
>> intercept-resend attack and get a copy of the secret key without giving away
>> the fact that someone is listening.

That's a refinement of existing attacks.

>> This attack is not merely theoretical, either. They have built an
>> eavesdropping device and successfully attacked their own quantum encryption
>> hardware.

Excellent; this is what more quantum encryption researchers should be doing.

>> More details can be found in their conference presentation."
>>
>> Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Not if you value your time. If you're interested, read the conference
presentation instead:

<http://www.iet.ntnu.no/groups/optics/qcr/>
<http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https://har2009.org/program/attachments/112_HAR_20090814-How-we-eavesdropped-100percent-of-a-quantum-crypto-key.ppt>

-- 
David-Sarah Hopwood  ⚥  http://davidsarah.livejournal.com

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