Single-Photon LED: Key To Uncrackable Encryption?

nut writes: "The BBC are carrying this story of new type of LED so precise that it can emit just one photon of light each time it is switched on. It has been developed by scientists from Toshiba Research Limited and the University of Cambridge. It is described in the journal Science, although I can find no mention of it on their website. One of the applications of this is supposedly uncrackable encryption, due to the law of indeterminacy. This application is described fully in 'The Code Book', by Simon Singh, although the method was only theoretical at the time the book was first published."

Comments

New technology

[Dirtside]

Man, I wish we could just set our nation's resource distribution slider to 100% for technology for, like, a week. Then we'd have all this great new tech to mess around with!

Of course, we'd have to switch the slider back to 100% social for a couple weeks to quell the riots that resulted in a week of no police, social services, or law. But... nifty new toys!

Re:Irresponsible

[RoninM]

Well said! I've been lobbying Congress for years to ban all forms of person-to-person interpersonal communication, including encrypted forms. Most Congressmen, are blissfully unaware of the inherent danger in whispering and face-to-face communication in secluded areas, and refuse to place the proper restrictions upon its use until we can more thoroughly investigate the ethical (read: political) ramifications! I hope, anyway, that it's just naïveté. One Senator, who shall remain nameless, seemed to agree with my viewpoint, but wanted to meet in private to discuss it! If that's not proof of the anti-American corruption that plagues our government, nothing is! Needless to say, I turned down his offer, but I won't judge him for his evil actions. Everyone knows the government rules by divine right, and God works in mysterious ways.

Now just imagine the ramifications of allowing secure encryption! What if Osama bin Laden had one of these terminals hooked up in his cave? Instead of using letters and his international installation of terrorists to securely transmit instructions face-to-face, he could have IM'd them! We MUST stop this trend towards privacy and technological innovation if we are going to continue to lead the world in human rights and technological innovations into the future!