Toshiba presents new research on quantumencryptie in the scientific journal Nature. The company has found a way to point-to-multipoint quantumencryptie to make it possible for up to 64 users.
It is at this time still in its infancy. The technique works only over relatively short distances and requires expensive equipment, such as lasers and a glasvezelkabelnetwerk. Moreover, it was so that a network is protected with quantumencryptie between only two persons on one line works. Toshiba has now found a way to extend that to 64 persons.
A network with quantumencryptie is protected, uses specially polarized photons the encryption key to encrypt. The photons are then by a fiber optic cable sent. On arrival at the destination, they are again by a scintillator layer is counted and is there, the key is rebuilt and forwarded to the recipient. If along the way something with the photons occurs, for example, by eavesdropping equipment, the key will be permanently modified and the receiver can detect this.
The team of Toshiba, focused specifically on the improvement of the scintillator layer is, and has created a system that up to 1 billion photons per second can count, making it possible to the communication of 64 people, to encrypt. “Our breakthrough is that we have a point-to-multipointsysteem have made,” says co-author Andrew Shields, head of the Quantum Information Group at Toshiba Research Europe.
This means that encryption keys about 8 channels by the network can be transmitted with a speed of 250kbit/s. In addition, one scintillator layer is now different users of the photons to count, what this speed increase allows, and Toshiba has found a way to make the influence of temperature changes to reduce. By a change of temperature the fibres are shorter, some errors in the transmission can cause. Toshiba can this change to catch and so 12 hours behind the other send.
“This kind of communication cannot be defeated by future advances in computing power, nor new mathematical algorithms, or new apparatuurontwikkelingen,” says Shields. “As long as the laws of nature apply, will ensure that the communication is fully protected.”
At the end of 2012 presented the researchers from Toshiba have a method to find the encryption keys on a regular fibre-optic network to spread. Previously had a separate network be created, separate from the regular data stream.