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

Those crazy japanese

[autopr0n]

Those crazy Japanese. First they build the Super-kamakamode[sic] that can detect a single photon, and now they have ablity to emit them one at a time to!

And that doesn't even get into their cool anime and hot women.

But seriously, this is going to require a bit of work before it's totally practical for mass usage, right now they would have to use a huge photomultiplier tube in order to actually sense a single photon. I think it'll be a while before CCD or CMOS light detection is that good...

Or hey, maybe we'll all go back to vacuum tube computers :P

Irresponsible

[SumDeusExMachina]

This is certainly an astounding development in the field of photonics. Maybe now we can all get rid of programs like PGP that leave us vulnerable to government backdoors and move to some real encryption. Quantum encryption, by its very nature, is unbreakable. I thought that I would barely live to see its advent, but now with this it looks like it could be just around the corner.

However, one has to wonder what kind of restrictions that will be placed on this. What would you be able to do with unbreakable encryption? Share information on human rights abuses with your friends? How about plan the destruction of a high-profile government building?

The point is, it's time to show a little responsibility in the academic community. Just like the scientists who go ahead with playing God with stem cells before the ethical ramifications have been fully explored, these researchers have unleashed an unholy nightmare on the world that won't be fully realized until it's too late. It's bad enough that al-Qaida used GPG to communicate and coordinate their plans to commit atrocities agianst the US, but how much safer would you feel knowing that now not even the NSA can decypher their communications? Or even intercept them? It sets a dangerous precedent, and I think they ought to fully understand what they are bringing about before they actually release a prototype.

There's no uncrackable crypto

[andkaha]

If a human constructed it, a human can deconstruct it. That goes for everything, always.

Re:NOT Uncrackable

[jfedor]

You are mistaken. It is uncrackable. Perhaps not very practical. Read the book.

-jfedor