![Security Security](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/security_64.png)
![Science Science](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/science_64.png)
Quantum Cryptography Systems Commercially Launched 181
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.
Who uses this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Terrorists (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Terrorists (Score:3)
-a
Re:Who uses this? (Score:1)
Curses! Foiled again! (Score:5, Funny)
More worrying: Are they somehow related?
I'll leave that one to deeper minds.
Re:Curses! Foiled again! (Score:4, Funny)
I actually tested this at one point. Here [slashdot.org]'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
Re:Curses! Foiled again! (Score:5, Funny)
Daniel
Re:Curses! Foiled again! (Score:2)
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 appeari
Re:Curses! Foiled again! (Score:2)
Re:Curses! Foiled again! (Score:4, Funny)
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
The cat (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The cat (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The cat (Score:2)
Re:The cat (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The cat (Score:2)
"Dilute the meritocracy"...
On Slashdot!
Ohhh gawd, stoppit, you're killing me!
Re:The cat (Score:1)
How (Score:1)
How can you have quantam cryptography without a quantam processor... or... how does it work?
Re:How (Score:1)
Re:How (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How (Score:2)
It is possible to send light that is in a superposition of states down a fiber optic cable. Placing a wiretap in the middle of the cable which intercepts and retransmits the transmission will collapse the wavefunction (in the Copenhagen interpretation, "perform an observation") and cause the light to fall into one state or another.
article text for /. effect (Score:5, Informative)
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
Re:article text for /. effect (Score:2, Funny)
Is this a joke?
Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Ummm... (Score:2)
Re:Ummm... (Score:2)
Of course you can get quite long optical cables without a repeater. So for example a few companies in a financial district could use this to safely link their systems. And linking two offices some 100 km apart isn't impossible either. Yes, it's ridiculously expensive, but the people that need this kind of security usually have money to burn anyway.
Re:Ummm... (Score:1)
Purely optical amplifiers might work (Score:1)
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 [pritel.biz] and they might preserve the superposition.
Won't work... (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Brassard's paper (Score:4, Informative)
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 [nec.com]" (Citeseer link).
Re:Won't work... (Score:1)
Re:Won't work... (Score:1)
When you have to use public/private key crypto, there is no reason to use quantum anymore, since a chain is as strong as it's weakest link so quantum crypto is worthless - QED
--Blerik
Re:Won't work... (Score:2)
Right. But well, some people have attempted to develop quantum authentication protocols [perimeterinstitute.ca] like this one [arxiv.org], this one [nist.gov], and this one [mit.edu]. Dunno if the device in question does any of them, or even if any of them are actually practical to use with today's technology. If the device in question doesn't use quantum authentication of some kind, well, they're selling snake oil, but I wouldn't dismiss the whole concept of quantum cryptography out of hand totally the way you seem so ready to.
Re:Won't work... (Score:2)
Well, some modern protocols (e.g. Kerberos) still require you to exchange symmetric crypto keys beforehand. I suppose these could be useful in situations similar to those. You could in theory build a quantum crypto-based Kerberos variant using these protocols.
To all the man in the middle people (Score:2, Informative)
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 att
Re:Won't work... (Score:2)
ps: strange:
-rw-r--r-- 1 yarn staff 344111 Nov 6 11:56 Cryptonotes.pdf
-rwxr-x--x 1 yarn staff 309915 Jul 28 2002 notes.pdf
The original (notes.pdf) is from dvipdfm, the selected page were extracted with MacOSX Preview.app. Must be some poor creation routines there.
Re:Won't work... (Score:2)
Re:Ummm... (Score:2)
Can't see many other uses for it at the moment, but it's early days.
Re:Ummm... (Score:2)
Using the quantum states of photons, you are able to encrypt information that cannot be intercepted; by observing the photons you are altering them, rendering the information useless.
This is a very fragile process, since a lot of things can influence the photon stream. There's no guarantee that the information will make it to the receiver, but thats not t
Re:Ummm... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
It's worse than that... it's complete FUD even if the boxes are in different buildings.
- This only works for individual point-to-point links, where the burden of managing pre-shared keys is not that high.
- Quantum cryptography replaces Diffie-Hellman, but it doesn't replace authentication. So you still have to have a pre-shared key or else the a
Re:Ummm... (Score:2)
From what I remember (and I don't remember all the details), the man-in-the-middle attack can be ruled out, because Bob and Alice can compare polarization patterns over an independent channel without actually sending the data. If Bob's received polarization doesn't match what Alice sent, then the stream isn't authentic.
Sure they can, but doesn't that defeat the whole point? "We're going to sell you this ultra-high-tech device that gives you a 'quantumly secure' channel and all you have do is maintain a d
Re:Ummm... (Score:2)
They claim 120km range.
Re:Ummm... (Score:2)
Absolutely not.
You can't copy a quantum state. If you could, then you could clone the state of a particle, make an exact measurement of the position of one copy and the momentum of another, and you'd have bypassed the uncertainty principle.
Which is what makes this whole scheme theoretically possible. If you could amplify one photon to N photons without disturbing the first one, then you could tap the key exchange undetectably.
Cool. (Score:1)
Direct Fiber Connection? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Direct Fiber Connection? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Direct Fiber Connection? (Score:2, Informative)
"Quantum Intrusion Detection" (Score:2)
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
Re:Direct Fiber Connection? (Score:2)
AFAIK, the classical channel can be eavesdropped upon, and the eavesdropper will gain no information about the key being exchanged, so it doesn't need to be absolutely secure. It just needs to be safe from jamming, because if you jam the classical channel the two parties have no way of discussing the level of interference on the quantum channel, and the protocol breaks down. As has been mentioned repeatedly, it is impossible to passively eavesdrop on the quantum channel and gain useful information without
The end of RIAAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Goodbye all copyright.
Re:The end of RIAAA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The end of RIAAA (Score:2)
Decentralized, totally secure and anonymous connections *are* available worldwide, or as close to worldwide as 'any place with a cybercafe' is. Anonymous, yup, decentralized, yup, secure, grab PuTTY and go, yup.
Of course maybe you know this and were being ironic, in which case it's just the mods who are being silly.
Re:The end of RIAAA (Score:1)
Well after watching the flash... (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't want to say anymore because I am freaking myself out just thinking about it.
Re:Well after watching the flash... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well after watching the flash... (Score:1)
I guess the cat is out of the bag, lets see what
Re:Well after watching the flash... (Score:2)
Re:Well after watching the flash... (Score:1)
For God's Sake Man! Read some spy novels!
Re:Well after watching the flash... (Score:1)
No, not bag. Box.
Hrmmpf. Nobody seems to read the articles any more...
Re:Well after watching the flash... (Score:1)
Not really the first (Score:1)
Triple-DES and AES? Why not a one-time pad? (Score:2)
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 act
Re:Triple-DES and AES? Why not a one-time pad? (Score:1)
Alice sends Bob A(x). Bob sends Alice B(A(x)). Alice sends Bob A'(B(A(x))) [== B(x)]. Bob evaluates B'(A'(B(A(x))) and gets x. {I think this method is known as Diffie-Hellman key exchange.}
It needs three passes, but an eavesdropper would have to successfully intercept all three transmissions before they could recreate the message. And the
Re:Triple-DES and AES? Why not a one-time pad? (Score:2)
And yes, I suspect bandwidth is the reason they transmit a secret key, rather than the secret message itself over this channel.
Ponxx
PS ok, there are some justification for transmittin
Re:Triple-DES and AES? Why not a one-time pad? (Score:2)
I imagine they're using the protocol, or a close variation thereof, of the one described by Charles H. Bennett, Gilles Brassard, Louis Salvail, and John Smolin in their paper "Experimental Quantum Cryptography [nec.com]" (Citeseer link). They use the quantum channel to allow Alice and Bob to negotiate a random key known only to them, which cannot be eavesdropped upon, and also allows them to discover any eavesdropper attempting to obtain their key. You can't use a quantum channel to transmit real information, but y
They can't produce single photons (Score:1)
funny on the way. I would not recommend using
such a system, I will stick to 2Kbit RSA thank you.
Me
Can't easily produce single photons on demand (Score:1)
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.
"They" CAN produce single photons (Score:1)
Deterministic Single-Photon Source for Distributed Quantum Networking [mpq.mpg.de]
PS: Note the "deterministic" part.
I wonder... (Score:1, Insightful)
hopefully... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a quite interesting subject... (Score:4, Informative)
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 [phys.au.dk] 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
Re:This is a quite interesting subject... (Score:2)
Quantum Teleportation has the same limitations. The way it works is Alice entangles 2 particles, transmit one to Bob. Then, Alice measures one, and Bob gets checks his particle to see what it was. But, tr
Re:flipping a coin over the phone (Score:2)
The properties get changed? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:The properties get changed? (Score:1)
Uhm, if you have access to the cable, then why not just cut it if you want to do a DoS attack? Much easier, if you ask me...
Re:The properties get changed? (Score:2)
My initial reaction was: if they can read the transmission, can they not predict exactly how their interference will alter the stream? In which case, does it matter that it has been altered?
photon encryption? (Score:2)
We need QPGP, QPQ, PQP or something (Score:2)
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?
USELESS!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:USELESS!! (Score:2)
Actually, I think if I was a government agency looking at subcontractors, I would check out this sort of thing. "What's that? You run your netowrk cable over standard wiring ladders and drop it th
Nothing quantum here ! (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Nothing quantum here ! (Score:2)
Quantum techniques are applied not to key generation, but key distribution. This is a crucial distinction.
Also, if you think you can bruteforce AES in a useful amount of time, have a ball. The people spending this kind of money on a QKD system are likely going to be picking appropriatly large key sizes for their message traffic.
A question of time... (Score:1)
If it was a MS product, it would get cracked quicker.
Re:A question of time... (Score:1)
Oh no (Score:1)
It's "FUTURE PROOF"! (Score:1)
Old news (Score:1, Offtopic)
-1, Boring.
Finally! A breakthrough! (Score:2)
Where's the cat? (Score:2)
Running into the fencepost (Score:2, Insightful)
As Bruce Schneier says [techtarget.com] 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 conventiona
Not the first (Score:2)
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 ap
Re:The truth about quantum computers (Score:2, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2382&cid=1510
Re:The truth about quantum computers (Score:1)
Re:The truth about quantum computers (Score:1, Informative)
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
Re:The truth about quantum computers (Score:2)
(I'm not yelling you lame lameness filter, trying putting some sanity checks into your percentage calculation!)
Re:The truth about quantum computers (Score:2)
Re:The truth about quantum computers (Score:1)
Re:Snake Oil, Inc. (Score:1)
Re:Snake Oil, Inc. (Score:1)
Re:Snake Oil, Inc. (Score:1)
Well, maybe my explanation can be... but then maybe I didn't explain it very well.
I suggest you read this: http://www.qubit.org/library/intros/crypt.html
Re:Bars on the windows, but the front doors wide o (Score:2)
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