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Scientists create digital snooping alert
Quantum cryptography is more practical, cheaper than current encryption systems
NEW YORK - Scientists say they had taken a step towards bring improved security to computer networks, developing an encryption technique that will extend protection to a small group of computer users.
The researchers at Toshiba's European research laboratory in Cambridge, England, reported they have figured out a way to allow a group of users to exchange encryption keys - strings of numbers used to mathematically encode digital messages - through an experimental technique known as quantum key distribution.
The technique is believed to be more practical and less expensive than existing technologies. It also extends the scale of the current quantum key systems to as many as 64 computer users from just two.
The system does not prevent eavesdropping - it simply serves as a kind of burglar alarm, alerting computer users that an outsider is listening to a transmission on an optical network.
Nevertheless, the advance comes at a time of growing concern about the relative ease of breaching computer security.
Many digital encryption systems are based on the ability of two computer users to secretly exchange a "key", which is then used to establish a secure communication channel to exchange messages over a network.
The encryption key is encoded in a special stream of photons or bits. The Toshiba work is based on the ability to make the incredibly short time measurements required to capture pulses of quantum light hidden in streams of photons transmitted over fibre optic links - and to do that in a network of dozens of users.
The key exchange is usually protected by the use of mathematical formulas based on the challenge of factoring large numbers. In recent years, public key cryptographic systems have been improved by lengthening the factored numbers used in the formula, in principal, requiring vastly more computing resources to break into the system.
Quantum cryptography relies instead on encoding the key in a stream of quantum information. If a third party eavesdrops on the communication, the fact will be immediately obvious.
"One of the attractive things about quantum cryptography is that security comes in the form of the laws of nature," said Mr Andrew Shields, one of the authors and the assistant managing director of Toshiba Research Europe. "It should, in principal, be secure forever."
The research was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
NEW YORK TIMES
Quantum cryptography is more practical, cheaper than current encryption systems
NEW YORK - Scientists say they had taken a step towards bring improved security to computer networks, developing an encryption technique that will extend protection to a small group of computer users.
The researchers at Toshiba's European research laboratory in Cambridge, England, reported they have figured out a way to allow a group of users to exchange encryption keys - strings of numbers used to mathematically encode digital messages - through an experimental technique known as quantum key distribution.
The technique is believed to be more practical and less expensive than existing technologies. It also extends the scale of the current quantum key systems to as many as 64 computer users from just two.
The system does not prevent eavesdropping - it simply serves as a kind of burglar alarm, alerting computer users that an outsider is listening to a transmission on an optical network.
Nevertheless, the advance comes at a time of growing concern about the relative ease of breaching computer security.
Many digital encryption systems are based on the ability of two computer users to secretly exchange a "key", which is then used to establish a secure communication channel to exchange messages over a network.
The encryption key is encoded in a special stream of photons or bits. The Toshiba work is based on the ability to make the incredibly short time measurements required to capture pulses of quantum light hidden in streams of photons transmitted over fibre optic links - and to do that in a network of dozens of users.
The key exchange is usually protected by the use of mathematical formulas based on the challenge of factoring large numbers. In recent years, public key cryptographic systems have been improved by lengthening the factored numbers used in the formula, in principal, requiring vastly more computing resources to break into the system.
Quantum cryptography relies instead on encoding the key in a stream of quantum information. If a third party eavesdrops on the communication, the fact will be immediately obvious.
"One of the attractive things about quantum cryptography is that security comes in the form of the laws of nature," said Mr Andrew Shields, one of the authors and the assistant managing director of Toshiba Research Europe. "It should, in principal, be secure forever."
The research was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
NEW YORK TIMES
