You are on page 1of 3

WHAT IS QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY?

AND CAN IT MAKE CODES TRULY UNBREAKABLE?


By Devin Powell Posted March 3, 2016

Every time you buy something online, you put your faith in math simple
math that's easy to do in one direction but difficult to do in reverse. Thats what
protects your credit card information from would-be thieves. But the system can be
hacked.
One popular encryption scheme, for instance, can be undone only by factoring
a huge random number, a key unlocking encoded information, into two prime
numbers. Its a task that today is extraordinarily difficult, but not impossible. With
enough computing power, a spying government could break the key. Or some clever
mathematician could find an easy way to factor large numbers and do it tomorrow, in
theory.
In search of greater security from code breakers, a new generation of code
makers has been turning from math to physics. Experts in atoms and other particles,
these cryptologists want to exploit the laws of quantum mechanicsto send messages
that are provably unhackable. They are the architects of a new field called quantum
cryptography, which has come of age only in the past few decades.
Quantum cryptography draws its strength from the weirdness of reality at small
scales. The particles making up our universe are inherently uncertain creatures, able to
simultaneously exist in more than one place or more than one state of being. They
choose how to behave only when they bump into something else or when we measure
their properties.

Quantum cryptography draws its strength from the weirdness of


reality at small scales.
The most popular cryptographic application yet for this strange behavior is
quantum key distribution, aka QKD. A quantum key encodes and sends the
information needed to decrypt a message in the fuzzy properties of particles, typically
light particles. Eavesdroppers trying to steal the key must make measurements of
those particles to do so. Those measurements change the particles behavior,
introducing errors that can be detected and alert users that a key has been
compromised and should not be used to encode information.
Many variations on QKD exist, some of which employ an unusual longdistance

quantum

connection

called

entanglement

to

protect

information.

Entanglement allows two particles to behave like a single entity, no matter how far
apart they are. Meddle with one particle, and its partner instantly reacts, even at the
opposite end of the universe, revealing the presence of a hacker.
QKD systems are becoming a reality. The first quantum transaction took place
in 2004, when researchers in Vienna used entangled photons to transfer a 3,000-Euro
deposit into their bank account. Commercial QKD systems came to the United States
in 2013, when R&D nonprofit Battelle installed a fiber optic network protected by
encrypted photons. The system, developed by ID Quantique, had already used its
technology to protect the results of an election in Geneva in 2007.
There is still a way to go before it becomes a standard commercial
proposition, but we are getting there faster than I expected, says quantum
cryptographer Artur Ekert, a professor at the University of Oxford and director of the
Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore.

Meddle with one particle, and its partner instantly reacts, even at
the opposite end of the universe, revealing the presence of a
hacker.
Entanglement can allow for extra security compared to other QKD schemes.
While the latter requires the device being used to be trusted, entanglement opens the
door to device-independent cryptography that remains secure even on untrusted
equipment. The quantumness of an entanglement-based system, which guarantees its
privacy, can be verified using a set of statistics that describe how similarly the
particles behave, called Bell inequalities.
And while QKD has become nearly synonymous quantum cryptography, it is
only one of many ideas in the field in various states of development. In the 1960s, a
professor at Columbia University developed the idea of a quantum money that would
impossible to counterfeit; each bill would house trapped particles whose properties
could be verified by banks. And quantum random number generators can now spit out
numbers based not on computer algorithms, which can never be truly random, but on
really random quantum fluctuations.
Others are working on secure ways to send tasks from a normal computer to the
quantum computers of the future devices that promise to be better at certain jobs
than todays computers among them, ironically, the factoring of the very large
numbers protecting your credit card transactions today. The future of code makers and
code breakers is entangled, and it may be quantum on both sides.

You might also like