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BBN Announces Functional Quantum Encrypted Network

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the tin-cans-and-a-string dept.

anzha writes "BBN Technologies has announced that under DARPA's Quantum Network Project to have built in conjunction with Harvard University the world's first functional quantum encrypted network. This is probably funded under DARPA's Quantum Information Science and Technology Program."

9 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Patents.. UCK by Ckwop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Patent-pending BBN protocols pave the way for robust quantum networks on a larger scale by ...

    AND

    We were ahead of the technology curve with the ARPANET and the first router, and our quantum network exemplifies the same kind of forward thinking and innovation that has made BBN a technology leader for over 50 years

    All this would be just fine if it wasn't for the horrible P word. They've automatically, like all people who patent cryptography, made their entire idea completly unprofitable and made sure that no-one ever implements it. The thing is.. there's no market pressure to adopt this stuff.. we already have secure communication. Sure.. it's improved but so was eliptic curve cryptography but no-one uses that because of patents.

    What a waste of time!

    Simon.

    1. Re:Patents.. UCK by pedantic+bore · · Score: 4, Insightful
      They've automatically, like all people who patent cryptography, made their entire idea completly unprofitable and made sure that no-one ever implements it.

      Yes, just like RSA, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange, SHA-1... C'mon. You use patented stuff all the time.

      there's no market pressure to adopt this stuff.. we already have secure communication.

      Oh, where to begin... we don't have secure communications, what we have are communications that nobody knows how to break yet. Quantum cryptography is a different ballgame. It can't be broken without changing the laws of physics.

      --
      Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
    2. Re:Patents.. UCK by Afty0r · · Score: 2, Insightful
      what we have are communications that nobody knows how to break yet. Quantum cryptography is a different ballgame. It can't be broken without changing the laws of physics.

      What you should have said is that It can't be broken without changing the laws of physics as we know them (yet) . The "Laws" of physics change all the time, as we make new discoveries and adopt new theories.
    3. Re:Patents.. UCK by sysopd · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The "Laws" of physics change all the time, as we make new discoveries and adopt new theories.

      Well the Laws don't change at all, we just get closer and closer to fully understanding them as time goes on. As in, there is a truth that we observe as X. The truth is elusive, and the best way we can describe it currently is X. We call this the 'Laws of Physics' which are the simplest explanation for what is happening, and generally correct to a certain fidelity. This fidelity increases as our understanding of the actual Law increases.

      So really, what you should have said was "Our understanding of the Laws of physics change all the time as we make new discoveries and adopt new theories".

    4. Re:Patents.. UCK by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Insightful", hmmm...

      The Laws don't change at all. You may or may not have noticed that there have been no new Laws of Physics in at least a hundred years, if not longer. Physics the science has long since recognised that there are few if any absolutes, and so stopped calling things "laws" a long time ago. Even Relativity (very actively investigated, yet to be disproved) is "only" a theory.

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
    5. Re:Patents.. UCK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not all the laws, just P != NP

      You should add, "in specific cases, for specific mathematical operations, as far as we know or anyone will admit, and as long as the users of said encryption adhere to correct operating procedures, use strong keys which are not generated according to a guessable or calculable pattern, and the security of the cryptosystem itself is not compromised."

      The mathematics of Enigma looked very ugly until the Allies got a model, found some weaknesses, developed some powerful approaches to the problem, exploited operator error, and used a lot of brute force. Then it was just possible to get enough to be useful. On the other hand, the generally similar US machine, which the Germans never cracked, was used with some modifications into the '60s.

    6. Re:Patents.. UCK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Not to be a pedantic bore, but...

      Blah, I'm not even going to bother.

      Whoever modded this guy this so far up obviously knows very little about crypto...

      Okay...never mind, I'll bite.

      OTP's are insanely (and some will say the only provably) secure crypto, if you make sure your pad generation is truly random. They're just inconvenient and impractical in some (or most) situations and everyday use.

      For example, many schemes depend on the fact that it's impractical to factor large numbers

      Have you ever studied prime numbers and factoring? Do so, you'll learn a lot. While it may be possible, theoretically, to come up with a magic prime number algorithm - if that happens, it's a breakthrough in math systems akin to the development of Calculus and algebra. :P

      The truth is that nobody knows how to factor large numbers today, but it's also true that nobody knows how hard this problem really is.

      That's a funny statement, in more ways than one. I know how to factor large primes. I know how hard it is to factor large primes. It's not that difficult, it's just computationally expensive to "brute force" them - even with various sieving technologies. See the magic alg statement a few lines up...

      someone already has figured out how to factor large numbers using quantum computing. Nobody has built a quantum computer large enough to run the algorithm, but once they do, you can kiss all these schemes goodbye.

      Heh, contradicting yourself as well... Nobody has built one that big because they quite simple don't know how yet. It's been a bit since I've looked up the latest white papers, but even if they do, and it's simply a matter of building a bigger machine - it will still pretty much only be limited to government level financial entities.

      Commercial crypto is quite safe, and for the foreseeable future - if you don't have anything to hide from $INSERT_THREE_LETTER_AGENCY_HERE. But then they've had the resources to break anything MS has put out for years.

      Okay, end rant. And I thought you were the pedantic bore? Anyway, please learn something about crypto before spouting off in a public forum about it though - there's so much FUD and misunderstanding around concerning it anyway.

  2. What's your threat model? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Before I can get excited about quantum crypto, I want to know what attacks real networks suffer from and how quantum crypto prevents them.

  3. The encryption is never the problem... by JasonB · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Although this is taking a page out of the Good Book by Bruce Schneier: The encryption algorithm/mechanics is never the weak link. There have been robust encryption algo's around for a very long time now.

    When was the last time a security breach occured that was the result of someone brute-forcing an encrypted message or key?

    The end-to-end system is what matters, as always. A keystroke sniffer installed via spyware is a vastly more economical approach to breaking an encrypted message. Which is exactly what happened to Half-Life 2, remember?

    This 'quantum crypto' can ensure that the integrity of the encryption was not breached while in-transit...but then some goober will accidentally leave his WinXP laptop at some airport security screening location and POOF! there goes your unbreakable security.