Slashdot Mirror
Quantum Cryptography Systems Commercially Launched
prostoalex writes "NY-based MagiQ has now started commercial shipments of its quantum cryptography systems, which it claims is the first commercially available device of its type. Apparently, 'Quantum cryptography goes a step further than electronic cryptography through its employment of a stream of photons, the quantum properties of which determine the key. The fun part is that if an intruder observes or intercepts the transmission, those properties get changed'." We've previously run stories on advances in quantum cryptography.
This is one of those really cool things that doesn't really have a market ready for it.
Now the NSA has something new to play with, and they'll forget about trying to crack our measly PGP. Geeks rejoice!!
I tried to read the article, but I couldn't find the bloody thing! I'm used to that though, but the part that boggles me is, "Was this the standard Slashdot Effect or was it Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?"
More worrying: Are they somehow related?
I'll leave that one to deeper minds.
----- "Oh, Stewardess! I speak l33t!"
For those in the audience that dont get the 'I-lost-my-cat-dept' it's in reference to Schrodinger's cat, a quantum theory of superposition. You can find what it's about here.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
How can you have quantam cryptography without a quantam processor... or... how does it work?
This page was generated by a Barrel of Circus Midgets, and that is the way I like it!!!
Startup MagiQ Technologies Inc. yesterday announced it's shipping what appears to be the first security system based on quantum cryptography (see MagiQ Ships Quantum Crypto ).
.)
Quantum cryptography goes a step further than electronic cryptography through its employment of a stream of photons, the quantum properties of which determine the key. The fun part is that if an intruder observes or intercepts the transmission, those properties get changed -- an unavoidable principle of quantum mechanics -- meaning the sender and receiver can tell if anyone is eavesdropping. Perhaps more important, the key can't be copied or faked (see Optical Science Gets Spookier and Quantum Cipher Sent by Fiber ).
It's a potential breaththrough, though working with photons has never been easy, and, as the optical networking bubble has shown, it can be an expensive way to build technology.
MagiQ's Navajo system, a box made to fit in a standard telecom rack, was unveiled in February and began beta trials in March (see MagiQ Demos Quantum Cryptography ).
MagiQ says Navajo performs the usual triple-DES and AES encryption standards. What's special is the transmission of the key, a string of random bits used to decipher messages. Computers normally use a random number for the key, producing encryption schemes that could be broken if enough computing power were made available.
"There's a big vulnerability people see, because optical fiber is very easy to tap," says Bob Gelfond, MagiQ CEO, citing one carrier that was finding taps in its Manhattan office "several times a week."
Using a quantum crypto scheme can defend against such taps. In addition to the obvious government and military customers, quantum cryptography is finding interest in the financial sector, for protecting backups or real-time traffic. Another target market would be any industry needing to protect intellectual property -- not just high-tech firms, but businesses such as automotive firms or tire manufacturers, Gelfond says.
But the real market may be the carriers themselves, he notes, simply because they're looking for revenue sources. Quantum cryptography could become a premium service for them. With that in mind, MagiQ is aiming for a price -- around $50,000 to $100,000, depending on features -- that's comparable to other add-ons such as VPN boxes.
Several other companies are working on quantum cryptography, but few appear to be interested in selling a complete system. Swiss firm ID Quantique is trying to commercialize quantum cryptography but so far offers only components such as a photon detector. ID Quantique recently partnered with other Swiss firms to expand its work into a quantum cryptography infrastructure (see Partners Promote Quantum Cryptography ).
Elsewhere, large companies, including IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM - message board), Mitsubishi Electric Corp., NEC Corp. (Nasdaq: NIPNY - message board; Tokyo: 6701), and Toshiba Corp. (Tokyo: 6502 - message board), are investigating the area more as a research project, with promising results but no products planned for the near future. "The big guys doing the research are not coming out with anything for a least a couple of years, as far as we know," Geldfond says. (See NEC Transmits Quanta , Japanese Claim Transmission Record , and Mitsubishi Creates Quantum Crypto
So, while MagiQ isn't alone in pursuing quantum cryptography, the company's taken a different approach. "Where we started to break new ground was in putting the engineers into the mix, guys who had substantial experience -- Sycamore guys, Tektronix guys," Gelfond says.
MagiQ employs 22, with offices based in New York. Founded in 1999, the company has been powered by roughly $6.9 million in angel funding (see Quantum Crypto Company Launches ).
In addition to Navajo, MagiQ is offering a box that only generates the quantum keys, intended as a tool for research outfits and universities.
-- Craig Matsumoto, Senior Editor, Light Reading
The setup consists of two rackmount units connected by both optical and Ethernet cables.
So... do the boxes have to be close enough to run the optical cables directly? Can the signal be regenerated or amplified without disturbing the photons? (I doubt it.) How about sending the photon stream through a DWDM switch? (Again, I doubt it.)
If the pair of boxes has to be in the same building, that isn't going to be a big seller. Bob would just walk down and HAND Alice the data.
Nice PR stunt, though.
Oh, I really want to know what telco is finding multiple taps a week to their optical fibers. I really smell bullshit here.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Sounds cool, but probably ahead of its time. Who really needs that kind of security?
It's a rip off from a previous quantum encryption article!!!
Yeah, but due to the nature of the the quantum portion, don't you have to have an unbroken end to end fiber connection with optical breaks for things like switching equipment? It seems that a repeater would change the polarization of the signal and kill the protocol.
I'll go out on a lim here and say that if all of the internet will slowly become quantom-secure and ip addresses will stop being centrally provided (think about it... a blob of addresses no one central organization provides.. everybody have a dynamic IP and DNSs publicize only those who wants to be publicized...) P2P sharing will stop being a risk to the sharer/sharee.
Goodbye all copyright.
I have to say this technology is really subject to Dos style attacks. Simply overwhelm the server with false keys very much like an alphabet attack, and for those of you that scoff because of the huge numbers involved, realize the computer power of a large zombie army with todays excessive computer power.
I don't want to say anymore because I am freaking myself out just thinking about it.
A Business Week article dating from this year's July says: "A Swiss firm, ID Quantique, introduced the first commercial quantum cryptography products last summer" So that would be mid-2002.
If you can already transmit random bits by means of quantum cryptography, why not go the whole nine yards and exchange random keys that are as long as your entire message? The papers I've read on quantum cryptography all employ it as a method for the secure exchange of one-time pads. The only reasons I can think of are that 1. the effective bandwidth of the quantum channel is too low and/or 2. they're having problems setting up a reliable and fast source of real random numbers on their device (this is actually a lot harder to do than most people think).
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
"The fun part is that if an intruder observes or intercepts the transmission, those properties get
changed -- an unavoidable principle of quantum mechanics -- meaning the sender and receiver can
tell if anyone is eavesdropping. "
Of course, in order to encrypt/decrypt something you have to access ("observe") the key, thus changing
its "properties".
~velco
PS. Can't wait for the next Crypto-Gram (http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html)
SO I figure they must be doing something
funny on the way. I would not recommend using
such a system, I will stick to 2Kbit RSA thank you.
Me
Shamelessly plagiarized from this comment:
5 44
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2382&cid=1510
You know, this must be like shooting fish in a barrel for you now ;) Move over Klerck. It's not worth it anymore..
Couldn't the quantum twin effect be used to transmit information without anybody else even seeing that a communication takes place?
The most realistic initial use of quantum computers will be as add-ons to existing super-computers to resolve certain types of NP-Complete headaches that regular math can't simplify yet.
Well, they cannot speed up NP-Complete problem in general, you can just quadratically speed up bruteforce enumeration of solutions, which is already achieved by most intelligent algorithms (which are still exponential).
They can solve factoring and discrete logarithm (and some other things), which are not even known to be np-complete (or np-hard)
...this cool invention does survive the time until it can become widespread. At the moment I cannot really see a market for this system other than at the NSA and similar organisations (anybody got a quantum computer out there at the ready?). But as technology rapidly advances it this crypto mehthod could prove quite useful for enterpises and in the long term to all end unsers. We just have to look out that this technology doesn't disappear too soon (maybe a little bit accelerated by the above named organisations who don't like crypo they can quite easily brak or trapdoor)
".Sig Stealer" was here
but is it safe from man in the middle attacks?
... ...
first: if legal party A sends data thru to party B, and party B can relais this to part C and so on
^ if this is possible it's just expensive equipment.
two:
Mod parent down. It is:s karma whoring
-plagiarized
-wrong
-incomplete
-shameles
The only good and correct thing about the post is the link about quantum computing, which adds to the vices of this post the most damned vice of all:
-off topic
(what he essentially writes is: Hey, you know the funny thing about quantum encryption? Well, it is not at all like fluffy bunny rabbits! Now, about fluffy bunny rabbits...)
But it is not likely to become widely available any time soon. The problem with quantum encryption, is that it is based on quantum states. These states are destroyed when observer (literally, you just have to look at them!), so it's not possible to read the data out and perform a "quantum dictionary attack", because how you read the data is part of the encryption
:)
This is what makes quantum encryption perfect. If somebody has even read the signal, you will know it. If they haven't, the problem is solved.
However, in order to make use of this perfect encryption, the quantum state must not change. Therefore, any obstacle along the way (imperfections in the fiber optic cable, or any attempts to read the signal) will destroy the signal. This means that a quantum encrypted message cannot be transmitted through a switched network. Every switch (as we know them) would have to read the data, and pass them along. That is not possible.
Instead, a technique known as Quantum Teleportation could be used. It's developed mainly in Denmark, and uses something called Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-beams to transport the quantum state. The catch is that they never read the state, because that would crush it. They simply transport it on a carrier wave, much like in Star Trek
With great numbers come great responsibility!
From the description of the system it seems that they use superposition of polarization of photons. Any measurements across the path of the photons would destroy the superposition. Therefore, any amplifier that transforms optic data into electric data and back into optical would destroy the quantum state. However, purely optical polarization maintaining amplifiers exist and they might preserve the superposition.
Quantum state can also be transmitted via Quantum Teleportation but this is much more sophisticated.
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
And the unbelievably fuzzy sense of humour of slashdot moderators strikes again. It's weird how all you need to post to get modded +5 funny is something that *looks* like a joke. It doesn't actually have to be a joke or be funny in any way, so long as it has the right general shape or form and the appropriate keywords, it will be modded +5 funny.
I actually tested this at one point. Here's the post I made. Thoroughly unfunny, no matter how twisted your sense of humour, but kind of looks like a joke. And of course it got modded +5 funny. Do slashdot mods mod it up out of fear for their own intelligence? Thinking maybe they're just not getting the joke but it's actually really funny because it looks like a joke?
Who knows. I'd be interested in finding out. Any thoughts anyone?
Daniel
Carpe Diem
So what does this mean then? I'm assuming it means that as soon as someone looks at something, it changes so the original information is lost.
In that case, could you launch a DoS attack on quantum crypto systems just by looking at all the data from a specific source? That way, none gets through.
Not really sure what you're getting at there.
Anyone can produce single photons. All you have to do is to reduce the intensity of a beam to the point where the photons no longer overlap in space nor in time. That's not hard.
And the above applies to the photon pair generators used in quantum cryptography just as much as to any other source. These have existed for many years now, although mainly in the lab.
Perhaps I misunderstood your point?
I don't think amplification is going to do you good. If this implements the first quantum key exchange protocol, designed by Gilles Brassard and others (notably this is the easiest one to implement using present-day technology so far), they actually work by transmitting single photons one at a time, with the transmitter whom we shall call Alice (the one generating the key to be used for your subsequent symmetric cryptography) controlling the polarization. The recipient of the photons (Bob) then measures the polarization, then depending on whether the answer was correct or not decide what the value of the key bits should be. Doesn't matter if Eve is able to eavesdrop on the classical channel where they're communicating about polarization methods, Brassard and his colleagues showed that she will not be able to gain any information about the key Bob is receiving from there. If Eve tries to tap into the photon stream she'll be noticed by Alice and Bob because of the way her measurements are affecting Bob's measurements... Anyone feel free to correct me on this, I don't have Brassard's paper with me on hand at the moment and can't find it on the web, so I've been just going by it from memory.
(in case you haven't yet noticed, this quantum cryptographic protocol, like most the others I've come across, is a key exchange protocol that works as a replacement for Diffie-Hellman or something similar).
The upshot is that the fiber cable here will be from the point of view of conventional fiber optic equipment a dark fiber. Light intensity is so low that only specialized equipment can detect it. Anything else inside the fiber, be it an amplifier or a DWDM switch, or whatever else, won't recognize the transmission and may do something totally unexpected that breaks the protocol. Bob could always be reading the wrong polarization, and hence Alice would have to keep discarding key bits. However, apparently there are excellent fiber cables that can go for several kilometers and still maintain the kind of integrity required for the protocol (IIRC, Brassard mentions somewhere that as early as 1996 someone actually built a real setup employing his protocol, over a 15km fiber optic cable).
Other quantum key exchange protocols I've come across are noticeably similar, and suffer from the many of the same limitations.
The only use that I can see for this is if you're someone with the resources to lay your own fiber around, say if you have a large complex covering several acres, and are more paranoid than the NSA. There is a market, I think, but that market looks more like the military and intelligence agencies of large industrialized nations. Building such an infrastructure could cost billions, even if you all you wanted to do was securely interconnect several dispersed branch offices in one large city...
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
With the current hype about everything which ascends the term Quantum I'd prefer this to be called photon encryption. It's principles are known for ages and are even put into practice by some scientists and it does not what it has s to do with the things people associate quantum with.
Alan Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing"
I thought your un-joke was quite funny, actually...
(ducks)
By the way, I've found a link to the paper I mention above. It's the paper by Charles Bennett, Francois Bessette, Gilles Brassard, Louis Salvail, and John Smolin, "Experimental Quantum Cryptography" (Citeseer link).
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Isnt the point of getting encrypted messages not only to protect them, but to be able to recieve them and decrypt them for reading. One very unsavory person with scissors could be very very dangerous in that situation. Over optic cable, i do not care that if it is view it changes, why not view it just disrupt communication. Isnt the next best thing to not being able to decrypt a message making it so that others cannot read it? .
the strongest system always has a weak link.
im illiterati in this situation so if you dont like what i say, thiink im stupid, good, i admit it.
Bah, who's the evil mod with a twisted sense of humour who modded my post +1 funny? Come out and fight fair!! :-P
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I think we really need some quantum cryptography that will stand when large-prime-based methods fail... Are there any good hackers working on this?
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
It's straightforward to produce single photons - just turn on a lamp, you'll get loads of them !
These Q cryptography schemes don't need single photon generation on demand, which is the tricky thing (although good progress is being made). It's sufficient to use a dim light source, such that the mean photon number is low.
you forgot off-topic. The topic is quantun encryption. The poster in question tried to do all of the things you listed (like karma whoring) by going off-topic and talking about quantum computing. mod grandparent down!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Seriously, you're dead on. Quantum entanglement is not the whole of the computer, and the states aren't just 0 and 1. There's a number of quantum states, not just two. And I'm pretty sure the computer works off of an averaging scheme, in a chamber of gas where values are assigned and reported with lasers (a purely quantum device).
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
So even if this is really workable quantum cryptography, in which case it would only work on a direct fiber to fiber link. I don't see how it would give any benefit.
From a technical point of view Quantum cryptography is only secure against man in the middle attacks if you have a SEPERATE channell to the remote host that you are absolutely sure in fact goes to the right person. As long as all communication goes over the fiber nothing prevents a spy from splicing his own box into the line and negotiating a key using quantum cryptography for both parties. However, if you have some channell that you know reaches the other source you can just use Diffie-Helman or like protocal to negotiate a shared key without ever broadcasting it on the line.
The only think quantum cryptography does for you is take the public key component out of the equation. However from reading the article this box just uses quantum encryption to negotiate a key for 3-DES or similar. Seems to me that the public key is not the weakest link in the system. Also as it does packet based encryption you can still watch and time packets to observe keystrokes (I believe good ssh and the like programs wait for several seconds to try and send a bunch of keystrokes together, but a box that sits outside the computer can't decode the first layer of encryption to stick the packets together in a meaningfull way...though I could be wrong on this).
From a pragmatic point of view, since this is only going to work on an unbroken single fiber there is some limit to distance here. I'm sure someone else on slashdot knows about how long you can string fiber before you need a repeater or something. Wouldn't it be easier to just routinely check to make sure there is no middle man inserted in the wire (use diffie-helman or similar again so that someone JUST listening can't decode things). Even better, take a key generated on the first computer BY HAND to the other end of the communications loop. Better cheaper security with no new high tech gizmos.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I know. You didn't want to hear that. But criminals, terrorists and other government agencies are the first to use this type of technology.
Kind of like the whole quantum computing thing. We sit around on projects like distributed.net trying to crack a 64 bit key. Nobody knows if the CIA has a quantum computer already, and nobody knows if they are having a laugh at our efforts, while they are able to crack any key in a matter of hours / days.
In other words: Quantum cryptography, which by the very nature of it is secure from being tapped (read Stephen Neal's "Cryptonomicon" for the light version, or jump in and get some of the real books on cryptography for the heavier stuff, such as "The Code Book" or similar) is a valuabe resource for anyone who wants their data hidden.
H
The Mini Repository - more links
Too bad that this is no real quantum crypthography here.
They just use quantum cryptography to generate the keys. In my opinion there are better ways to get a key since the real encryption is still based on standard techniques like DES. Everybody knows that these can be bruteforced....
So the real Quantum Encryption still lies in the future
One thing is for certain... it will get cracked.
If it was a MS product, it would get cracked quicker.
For problems, seek only the simplest solution, complexity brings with it more problems.
I'm sure M$ has an implementation going too. Be prepared for polarization bugs!
This is wrong. Another company already has Quantum Key Distrubution for sale:
www.idquantique.com/kqd.html
Jeroen
I watched a their presentation. It was typically marketingtastic until we hit the phrase it's FUTURE PROOF...that's inspired! Well actually it's nicked (or to be fair simultaneously invented!) from a company called brabantia www.brabantia.com who make kitchen appliances! All technical/poltical discussion aside...I think that's funny. As for someone attempting to make a company on this...good on ya. Let me know when it's done. ;)
Seen on Yahoo! 2 days ago.
-1, Boring.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Something that can both be vaporware and NOT be vaporware at the same time!
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Of course they can produce single photons. You must have missed that issue of Physical Review Letters (only the most pretigious journal of physics), here's a copy of the article:
Deterministic Single-Photon Source for Distributed Quantum Networking
PS: Note the "deterministic" part.
I went in July to a seminar of a group that studies Q.C. (won't say who they are). They repeated (several times) phrases as "q.c. is the future" and "standard crypto will be substituted by q.c.". It was really funny (to say the least) considering that q.c. only enables to: "send a data stream along a single fibre so that receiver can detect tampering". /.ers; the second is worth at least some remarks.
So I agree that it is perfect for distributing secret keys, and other similar applications. But I had to force myself to not ask these questions: What about sending data in the internet as large? What about data signing?
The 1st question has been asked by other
Data received thru q.c. is as secure as the server where it is stored; photons cannot be stored.
Suppose that Alice wants to send data to Bob so that Bob knows that Alice sent it. Suppose also that Alice host is secure (otherwise,So, while q.c. could substitute conventional data signing for short-time applications, when we want to sign data so that the signature can be verified at a later time, q.c. is not the answer: photon
Commit quantum suicide instead.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
So, it really is CLOSED SOURCE. :)
(I'm not yelling you lame lameness filter, trying putting some sanity checks into your percentage calculation!)
Way to you anti-slash, fag-master.
Can't write your own +5 comments? Maybe it's because you're too busy sucking cock.
sigh...
=====Quote======
Quantum encryption is based on the fact that quantum states cannot be measured without altering.
=====Quote======
You've got it 90% right but...quantum encryption requires entaglement. And entanglement doesn't really refer to superposition of states. It refers to two particles which share a state such that if one is changed the other is changed regardless of distance. Now it is connected to a superposition of states because of they whole obeserve=alter thing but you misidefined the term.
Both are really intersting and much of the other problems you describe are very real and very difficult. It's going to be an interesting ride over the next 20 years.
Claiming this is useless because it falls to man in the middle attacks is totally false.
Firstly, noone is saying QKD is perfect, or secure from highly sophisticated MITM attack, or anything of the sort. It claims to be secure from what amounts to a wiretap, which it entirely is. It is also secure from anything but the most sophisticated and perfectly executed MITM attack, because of the fragile nature of the quantum communication.
The only way the BB84 protocol can be subverted by a man in the middle attack is by totally fooling Alice and Bob into thinking they are talking to each other, when in fact they are talking to Eve.
Rather than:
C:A--E--B
Q:A--E--B
It would be:
C:A---E E---B
Q:A---E E---B
Certainly this is possible. But with this kind of scheme, Diffie-Hellman, or whatever else you want to pimp as "better" cause you're more familiar with it, would fail as well. At the current moment, with current technology, quantum key distribution is secure as any other key distribution method. There is no MORE secure pure KD method to my knowledge. There certainly may be more practical, but in terms of feasibility of breaking, QKD via BB84 is just about as good as it gets.
Sure, it has flaws... sure, it may be useless to 90% of people and inappropriate for 5% of the remainder, but it is not "worthless."
-Greg
-Greg
Imagine a beowolf cluster of these!!
The power of encryption methods is not the problem these days - it's the people using the system. What's the good of QC or 4096-bit encryption codes when users e-mail their password to associates across the continent in plain text? We put bars on the windows and leave the front door wide open.
This message was encrypted with quantum cryptography... I saw the key here, someplace, a minute ago, but I have no clue where it's gone.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Hey, if I didn't tape the Post-It(tm) with my password to my monitor, then it might fall off after a year or so, and then how would I log in? Answer me _that_ mr. smartypants!
Okay, I don't really have it taped to my monitor. I have a card in my pocket with 200 random characters in a single string (numeric+mixed case). From that I chose an 8 character passwod every so often, sometime forwards, sometimes backwards. I refer to it for the first couple of days until the password is learned by rote. If I need an old password, i only have to remeber a couple of characters to be able to find it in the pattern. And no one is going to guess that my password is P5huIy68, or whatever. It also covers almost all of the rules of most systems (except my bank, which has to have a symbol, so I append one). And yes, that's an old one I typed in. In the worst possible case, I'm no more than 400 tries (including wrapping) from the correct password.
You're right of course, users are most of the problem. But the untrustworthiness of systems is the other. Do you trust Microsoft Passport? I know I don't. I'd rather send my cc# plaintext and review my statement carefully every month rather than store my data on M$ servers. (I only use 1 time CC#s on the'net now, FWIW).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Yeah, but the point is that in a good implementation of such a system, no third party would be able to listen to the quantum-encrypted data without changing it - at which point Bob and Alice would know that the there was an eavesdropper (or that the system had gone bellyup).
This is why I generally insist on calling this technology "Quantum Intrusion Detection"; it adds little or nothing to the "Cryptography" aspect of the communication. It's only contribution is the ability to add 100% provable intrusion detection to the link, which means that once detected, you can shut the communication down. As I understand it, it does NOT protect the communication if you insist on continuing to send it after intrusion is detected any more then conventional cryptography does; the intercepter can get the bits (but still faces a serious problem with decrypting the communication conventionally).
Yes, it has "cryptography" as part of the technology but that's not its distinguishing feature.
I for one welcome our new quantum lords, And I offer them a gift of Schrodinger?s perpetually floating feline. (you know, the one in the black box with buttered toast glued to his back)
Hmm...every time you insult moderators sense of humor, they think you're joking which only really proves your point.
Come on, "solar-powered flashlight" is hilarious. You know, because you don't need a flashlight when you're in direct sunlight. You don't even get your own jokes.
That was trollish flaimbait, but I have to say, it was pretty damned funny.
yoda doll... where do you come up with this...
It may be funny in some contexts, but NOT in the context of a thread about some new solar power cells. It simply made no sense in that context. Not only that, but it's a very well-worn joke. Certainly most people will have heard the expression before. Why would a solar-powered flashlight become achievable because of cheap power cells? If I had said "affordable" possibly someone with a bad sense of humour could have found it funny, but with "achievable", wtf?
Next in my experimentation I will post something which actually does not make any sense at all, not even grammatical, but looks like a joke. I bet it'll be modded up funny, too.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
are there this many strigent rules on all jokes? now im afraid that if i laugh a joke people might think im stupid cause it wasnt supposed to be a joke in the first place....
i think im goign to cry....
Moose
Something like this?
Q: How many SCO chickens does it take to cross the road?
A: 100. One to cross the road, and 99 to sue IBM.
Is this not funny enough to be funny? Probably not. Please ignore me.
The problem is that slashdot's moderation system encourages a result that looks like "the moderators as a whole thought that this was /really/ funny" when the cause is just "five different people saw this and gave it a funny moderation".
Thus the key to high karma: post replies that are likely to get some positive moderation (any at all) to articles that are posted early. Getting modded up rarely has anything to do with quality - it's all about getting in front of the moderators, which is all about appearing near the top of the comments page when the comments are viewed threaded, highest scores first. (Since almost no moderators follow the advice to read slashdot nested, newest first)
Simply: You could design a repeater and quickly splice it into the cable, like between those slow bits with an gun that cuts and connects to two transceivers in say 1/1000th of a second.
The hard part is that the repeater would have to do everything that transceivers at either end of the cable would do, but if I designed the hardware at each end and I designed the repeater and I had snapshots of the internal states of both ends to feed into the repeater it could be done and they could not tell they were being watched.
The company's press release mentions a "single photon generator," but neglects to mention the cat that must be included inside the box for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to work. It also doesn't mention kitty litter, catnip, or other necessary supplies. Perhaps they're using Cat5?
it seems to me that quantum entagelment as you have explained it (and its limitations) can be used for another basic problem in cryptography "flipping a coin over a phone".
the senario is a follows: Alice and Bob need to agree upon a random bit. i.e. one which neither Alice or Bob can influence (significantly) yet neither can verify that the other is following a given protocol (because they are on oposate ends of the line). Given some common intractability assumptions such as factoring or the DLP there are several exponentialy asymptoticly secure solutions. In other words they are not absolutely secure, just statisticaly and they are based on un proven grounds.
Now what if Alice and Bob at some previouse point in time set up a pair of entangled particles between them. (This is akin to setting up a tellephone line between them.) Well I geuss the rest is pretty clear. At a predefined time, or one dynamicaly agreed upon through insecure channels each reads the state of their partical and there u have your random bit with absolute certainty that neither party influenced the outcome. (aditionaly, though not neccesary, both Alice and Bob can be sure that no other party knows the bit.)
hm....
am i completely off?
This is an intrusion detection system, not cryptography.
As Bruce Schneier says super-encryption technologies are like a single, indestructible fence post anchoring a much weaker defense curtain. The defense is indestructible only so long as the enemy runs directly into the fence post. However, it's much easier to circumvent the fence post and cut through the fence. Social engineering, poor policies, key theft and other routes make it much easier possible for hackers to get around conventional forms of strong encryption. And quantum computing is no different.
"Quantum cryptography has the potential for making the strongest link, in a series of very weak links, even stronger," Schneier says.
what would be nice, is if slash had the ability to store two comment view preferences: one for when you are not moderating and one for when you are. That way it could automatically switch to nested, newest first when modding.
-no broken link
"The Code Book" is the light version. Heavier volumes include "Applied Cryptography".
I'm not trying to be elitist here. "The Code Book" really is an easy read. It was designed to be.
Hands in my pocket
Humour isn't just rules - I just looked at and laughed, even though it was actually a rather insightful comment.
Yes, entirely true - The mythical solar powered torch IS more likely as solar cells get cheaper, and batteries better.
huh. go figure. It's kind of funny the way you played on peoples 'perceptions', you know. In fact, _really_ funny the way you fooled me too.
A BSOD message from Quantdoze ZP:
This program as performed all illegal operations simultaneously and will be shut down.
Since your program now has no momentum there is no way to tell where to restart.
Any attempt at reading the error logs will destroy them.
Have a nice day!
What would be better is if the moderators rated the damn posts, rather than just bumping it up.
Moderator A, on crack, thinks the solar powered flashlight is just about the funniest thing in the world... rates 5, Funny
Moderator B, also on crack, thinks the post is a troll and marks it -1, Troll
Moderator C, not on crack (where is this guy?? He's like the Yeti), thinks the post is sorta funny, but not THAT goddamn funny, rates 2, Funny.
Moderator D, on bad crack, thinks it's partially informative, and rates it 3, Informative.
Moderator E, on LSD and crack together, thinks he read an amusing tale about a radioactive badger, and gives it 2, Offtopic.
total: 11/5 = 2.2, Funny (majority of tags, but keep the little % scores box... 40% Funny, 20% Offtopic, etc)
The mods are on crack
Note that quantum cryptography is a misnomer for the BB84 and BB92 protocols. These should be called quantum key distribution because that's all they do. You can't encrypt information with them, just exchange keys. You still need conventional crypto to use the keys with.
Also keep in mind you need a dedicated fiber link between the communicating parties. Quantum crypto is only useful in ultra-paranoid, damn-the-expense applications (military, govt). For the majority of uses, it's not a practical improvement over public-key cryptography (or even private-key for that matter).
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
Actually I read that post.. Didn't find it funny and wondered what I'm not getting.. Figures.
Store with salt
So tell me - if someone later invented quantum communications, would a quantum link simultaneously be both up and dead until you observed it?
Amidst all the hype of techno babble surrounding Quantum cryptography,
people fail to recognizes what it really is, and what it is capable of
doing.
In short Quantum cryptography is nothing more than a key-exchange model to
support symmetric ciphers and such. It is just one of the links in the
chain which is called a cryptosystem. Hence the old adage still applies,
and that is "you are only as strong as your weakest link". People shouldn't
be under the impression that just because scientist and famous
cryptographers are saying that the quantum key exchange is very difficult
to foil that there is no other way of getting around a cryptosystem that
uses quantum cryptography as a part of their system.
Well thats been my 2 cents.
Arash Partow
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
MagiQ is NOT the first company to sell a quantum encryption system, ID Quantique was, last year.