First Bank Transfer via Quantum Cryptography

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First Bank Transfer via Quantum Cryptography

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 21, 2004 @07:40AM from the sneaky-atoms dept.

An anonymous reader writes with today's announcement that "the Austrian project for Quantum Cryptography made the world's first Bank Transfer via Quantum Cryptography Based on Entangled Photons; see also Einstein-Podolski-Rosen Paradoxon." (For more background, see the recent Slashdot post "Quantum Cryptography Leaving the Lab.")

14 of 310 comments (clear)

Unexpected Consequences by etLux · 2004-04-21 07:41 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes, but... what will I now need to decode my bank statements?
But... by DonServo · 2004-04-21 07:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Wouldn't checking if the transfer went through alter your balance? :-P
1. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-21 07:44 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I looked in my account and found out my cat was dead.
  
  You know the two-slit experiment? Well, its just like that
  -- standard explanation for weird quantum things when you don't know the right answer.
2. Re:But... by blincoln · 2004-04-21 08:23 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  You know the two-slit experiment? Well, its just like that
  -- standard explanation for weird quantum things when you don't know the right answer.
  
  I was just reading about that last night in The Elegant Universe.
  
  For those who haven't heard of it before, here's the experiment:
  
  - take a wall with light shining on it from a projector.
  
  - place a board in-between the wall and the projector that interrupts the beam of light. The board should have two vertical slits cut in it, which can be opened and closed independently of each other.
  
  If you open just the left one, you get a vertical bar of light on the wall.
  
  If you open just the right one, you also get a vertical bar of light on the wall, offset from the one that was there with the left one open.
  
  Now, intuitively you would think that if you opened both at once, you would just get two vertical bars of light, but you don't. Wave interference means you get a whole bunch of light and dark vertical bars on the wall.
  
  Here's the spooky quantum-mechanical part - the same interference effect happens even if the projector is designed to only emit one photon at a time, then wait until it has hit the wall (or the board) before sending another. You will still get the bands of dark and light.
  
  Pretty weird, eh?
  
  --
  "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Unfortunately... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-21 07:42 · Score: 5, Funny

...I can't observe my checking account balance without lowering it.
Quantum tracking number... by gevmage · 2004-04-21 07:43 · Score: 5, Funny

So the transaction slip presumably says:

Your transaction number has a 90% probability of being between 8765432 and 8765478.

Have a 75% nice day.

--
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
My check bounced by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-21 07:45 · Score: 5, Funny

Due to Insufficient Cat.
Re:Entangled Photons by Professr3 · 2004-04-21 07:46 · Score: 5, Funny

Please be Bill Gates, please be Bill Gates, please be Bill Gates...
When in doubt, mod +1 funny and pray
Quantum Crypto Provably Flawed? by theLOUDroom · 2004-04-21 07:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm asking this question again because it came a bit to late to the last discussion I posted it in

Is quantum crypto provably flawed?

I've seen tons of blurbs stating the the link is "absolutely" secure, but it seems that isn't really the case. (see the bottom of the page.)

What strikes me about all this is the following section:
"each pulse should be attenuated to an average of about .1 photon to reduce the probability of generating a two-photon pulse that could be split and eavesdropped undetectably."

What that says to me is that there is not way to 100% know you're transmitting just one photon.

It sounds like there's no device that is capable of transmitting one and only one photon with 100% reliability. If this is the case, a lot of the arguments about how secure this is are vastly overstated.

In the end QC would be vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack by watching for multi-photon emissions.

If this is the case, a lot of the noise surrounding QC could turn out to be hype. (The big plus for quantum crypto is that it's supposedly immune to this.) Is there a quantum physicist in the house?

--
Life is too short to proofread.
1. Re:Quantum Crypto Provably Flawed? by gunnk · 2004-04-21 08:05 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I think you're worried about something that happens, but isn't a useful eavesdropping technique. Suppose that you have a device for emitting single photons. Further suppose that the emitter accidentally emits two photons for a single bit 1% of the time.
  
  If an eavesdropper successfully split the extra photons off, they have successfully captured 1% of the data stream. First off, that's not much data if you want to reconstruct something meaningful in the way of information carried by the stream.
  
  Another problem, however, is the effect of the splitter on the rest of the stream. When a single photon passes the splitter, which path does it choose? If I'm not mistaken, that choice will be at random. If so, then the presence of the splitter becomes immediately detectable because half the single photon pulses never reach their destination. In fact, the number missing is likely to be so close to 50% that the presence of the splitter should be obvious to the bank.
  
  --
  Life is short: void the warranty.
Heisenberger by jabbadabbadoo · 2004-04-21 07:54 · Score: 5, Funny

According to Heisenberger, my money is going to be both here and there. And if I'm to check my balance, the result will be inaccurate because I'm checking it up.
Nah, back to those good ol' electrons.
Re:Complicated by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-21 07:55 · Score: 5, Funny

"I may know how to program with code, but damned if i know how futons work!"

Simple: fold the futon up when you want to use it as a couch and then fold it back down when you want to use it as a bed.
Re:Proof of Concept by onion2k · 2004-04-21 08:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Firstly, the security this sort of thing provides is at a different stage in the process to anything a social attack would work on, so the two concepts are unrelated.

Secondly, even if they were related, you're appear to be suggesting we might as well not bother patching one future security hole because a different one also exists? Thats crazy. We should tackle all security risks, not just one particular one.

Lastly, socially engineered attacks are most often people giving up a PIN or forging a signature. That affects one account per attack. If a cracker gets past the sort of stage that Quantum Cryptography protects they have the opportunity to automate and reap every transaction the bank carries out.

Now which is the bigger problem?

--
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Re:How does it defeat repeaters? by einstein · 2004-04-21 08:11 · Score: 5, Informative

because you wouldn't know which photons contain the data. as soon as you touch it, the other end knows it's datastream has been tampered with.

This is a good overview.

--
I post links to stuff here