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Securing Fiber Using Light Polarization
screenbert writes: "A new and novel way of
communicating over fiber optics is being developed by physicists supported by
the Office of Naval Research. Rather than
using the
amplitude and
frequency
of
electromagnetic waves, they're using the polarization of the wave to carry
the signal. Such a method offers a novel and elegant method of secure
communication over fiber optic lines. This
press release has more information. Of course I always thought that fiber
was always pretty secure anyway since it's a lot harder to tap than copper."
...until polarizaton-based recievers become widespread, anyway.
Security through exclusivity ("It'll be secure, because we're the ONLY PEOPLE who have the hardware to read it!") doesn't work for very long.
Not that it's easy to tap fibers, anyway... Even if you have the equipment, you have to figure out which fiber out of 288 or more is the one you need, and the documentation is usually kept locked up tight.
How do you secure a physical medium from interception? If you intercept a signal, can't you just rebroadcast the same signal back out as long as it was read correctly in the first place? Isn't the real security in the encryption of the data being transmitted over the medium?