http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/china-takes-major-step-in-creating-a-global-network-for-quantum-communication/news-story/b7e5ec8cdd47b353bba8be886e7d1562
A little Chinaman uses Bob and Alice to explain.
Peak Warming Man said:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/china-takes-major-step-in-creating-a-global-network-for-quantum-communication/news-story/b7e5ec8cdd47b353bba8be886e7d1562A little Chinaman uses Bob and Alice to explain.
> a digital communication system impervious to hackers.
But really really sensitive to “denial of service” attacks. The whole raison d’etre for quantum encryption is that eavesdropping stops the message getting to its intended target. As a result, a received message is sure to be secure. But all a hacker has to do is pretend to eavesdrop, and then nothing gets through.
Is quantum communication really necessary to ensure secure messages, surely we can just create a more complex encryption method than what we currently use if a time comes when computers are fast enough to use brute force attacks to hack a system. For example instead of 256 bit encryption use 512 bit.
Cymek said:
Is quantum communication really necessary to ensure secure messages, surely we can just create a more complex encryption method than what we currently use if a time comes when computers are fast enough to use brute force attacks to hack a system. For example instead of 256 bit encryption use 512 bit.
Don’t even need to go that high tech. There’s an illustrated manuscript from the Middle ages written in a code that no computer has been able to crack. It’s 240 pages long.
Cymek said:
Is quantum communication really necessary to ensure secure messages, surely we can just create a more complex encryption method than what we currently use if a time comes when computers are fast enough to use brute force attacks to hack a system. For example instead of 256 bit encryption use 512 bit.
While that’s OK for modern computers, when quantum computers become available they’ll be able to break strong (modern) encryption instantly (because they can (theoretically) examine every possible key at once.) An active field of cryptography, called PQC, Post-Quantum Cryptography, strives to build cryptosystems immune to this system (there are present cryptosystems that can withstand quantum attacks, with one-time pad cryptography a good example, but they have major disadvantages with present technology.)
mollwollfumble said:
Cymek said:
Is quantum communication really necessary to ensure secure messages, surely we can just create a more complex encryption method than what we currently use if a time comes when computers are fast enough to use brute force attacks to hack a system. For example instead of 256 bit encryption use 512 bit.Don’t even need to go that high tech. There’s an illustrated manuscript from the Middle ages written in a code that no computer has been able to crack. It’s 240 pages long.
There are (quite strong) arguments that the Voynich Manuscript is not written in any code, but is just random scribbling, with pseudo-biological pictures to make it look good. It may be an encoded message, of course, but the evidence against it is strong.
Reading about Quantum Computing on Wikipedia is rather involved
Wocky said:
While that’s OK for modern computers, when quantum computers become available they’ll be able to break strong (modern) encryption instantly (because they can (theoretically) examine every possible key at once.)
While cryptography based on the factorisation of large integers into their prime factors can be readily attacked by quantum computers using Shor’s algorithm, there are other hard inverse problems for which no known quantum computer algorithm exists.