Light Shed On 'Unbreakable' Code

KingFishKingFish
edited May 2005 in Science & Tech
Australian scientists believe they have developed an unbreakable information code to stop hackers, using a diamond, a kitchen microwave oven and an optical fiber.
Researchers at Melbourne University used the microwave to "fuse" a tiny diamond, just 1/1000th of a millimeter, onto an optical fiber, which could be used to create a single photon beam of light which they say cannot be hacked.

Photons are the smallest known particles of light.

Until now, scientists could not produce a single-photon beam, thereby narrowing down the stream of light used to transmit information.

"When it comes to cryptology, it's not so much of a problem to have a coded message intercepted, the problem is getting the key (to decode it)," said university research fellow James Rabeau, who developed the diamond device.

"The single-photon beam makes for an unstealable key."

The security of information depends on the properties of light that are used to transmit data.

Laser beams which are used at the moment send billions of photons, making it easy for hackers to steal some of them and break the code, said Rabeau.

The diamond device sends a stream of single photons, so that if the chain of communication is broken, the information becomes corrupted and a hacker immediately exposed to both the sender and the receiver, he said.
Source: CNN

Comments

  • MiracleManSMiracleManS Chambersburg, PA Icrontian
    edited May 2005
    Although this sounds promising, what happens if the hacker somehow manages to read the data stream without interrupting?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2005
    In quantum cryptography, reading the photonic data stream is an act of interruption, and destroys the stream.

    Put succinctly, you just.. can't.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited May 2005
    Thrax wrote:
    Put succinctly, you just.. can't.

    Can't in anyway imaginable at this point in time.... I'm sure somehow someday they'll find a way.
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited May 2005
    Just random thinking, and because I'm bored, this seemed like an interesting challenge.

    What if they made an incredibly small, thin "switch"? Granted, it'd have to be lighter and more flexible than anything we can currently make. But that's all it'd take. Or a piece of glass (or something) that the photon passes through and triggers some sensors or something. Though any nudge/change in speed at all would be enough to disrupt it, so those probably wouldn't work. Interesting to think about, though.
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