Under the auspices of the European Union, the world’s largest quantum-encrypted network has been unveiled in Vienna, Silicon.com reports. It’s the product of four years of work by 41 organizations from 12 countries, overseen by the SECOQC (Development of a Global Network for Secure Communication Based on Quantum Cryptography).
To explain quantum cryptography, I turn to Wikipedia::
An important and unique property of quantum cryptography is the ability of the two communicating users to detect the presence of any third party trying to gain knowledge of the key. A third party trying to eavesdrop on the key must in some way measure it, thus introducing detectable anomalies. By using quantum superpositions or quantum entanglement and transmitting information in quantum states, a communication system can be implemented which detects eavesdropping.
The problem, Hannes Hüebel, a post-doctoral researcher said, “is that long distance is difficult to bridge.” Photons leak from the fiber-optic cable over long distances, corrupting the data. Data sent over the single cables can be lost if the cable is cut. The Vienna project’s solution: a method to reroute the data if a cable is cut.
Hüebel said the network is really about bringing the technology out of the labs and showing that it could have a genuine commercial use, such as transmitting banking and government data. He added that the project aims to create a viable network using the technology and to demonstrate that it could be reliable over a period of time.
While the technology might be ready within five years, Huebel thinks it will take a major breach of traditional security to spur the movement to quantum.
