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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.
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!
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 ).
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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
Yup, that's the dirty little secret of quantum crypto. You need a direct, end-to-end fibre connection for it to work. You also need an alternative, non-quantum, secure communication channel to verify the integrity of the quantum data. If the secondary channel isn't secure, an eavesdropper who listened both to the quantum-encrypted data and the integrity check would be able to reconstruct the data.
It's a bit like having a faster-than-light communicator where you get the message faster than light, but you can only find out what the message meant by calling up the sender on a slower-than-light link.
Quantum Cryptography is a bit like one of the things you see advertised on satellite TV "info-mercials", or in those irritating promotional catalogues that get tucked into magazines. You know the sort of thing I'm talking about: you start out amazed, barely able to believe anyone could invent something as wonderful as that; but if you order one, you'll end up wondering why they even bothered inventing it.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Shamelessly plagiarized from this comment:
5 44
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2382&cid=1510
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)
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!
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.
- If the secondary channel isn't secure, an eavesdropper who listened both to the quantum-encrypted data and the integrity check would be able to reconstruct the data.
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).yes, we have no bananas
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.
Nonsense. QC doesn't care in the least how the encrypted information is transmitted. Nor does it even care too much about how it is encrypted. If you look at the company's website it clearly shows diagrams with the data going along one path, and the (quantum) key going along a dedicated path. It's all about the transmission of the KEY. The key is transmitted in such a form (individual polarised photons) that it is impossible to intercept the key without changing it.
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