Theory Could Lead to Ultrafast, Secure Web for Space Travel

Brian,

As someone who actually does work on Cryptography,I must say I really liked your explaination of Quantum Cryptography.It was very succint and to the point.

There is no doubt that it is a slighly difficult topic to understand and assimilate the first time around;but once you get the hang of itlits a pretty cool concept.

However,when it comes to commercial Applications-these are still some way off.There are a couple of Specialised providers;but they are beyond the reach of all except the most Paranoid Enterprises.

Regards

Ashish.

Brian! I  have difficulties with the understanding of quantum theory (especially being a not native English speaker:)))ю However, I did my best to understand what you were talking about.And here goes the question. What are the possible dangerous consequences  of that? There should be. They always are...

Right.  Even if entanglement is found to allow for instantaneous communication, one would still need to transport the particles to the receiver before communicating -- which would be limited by the speed of light.

I'd meant this post to be more of an introduction to quantum entanglement and quantum cryptography (which seem to becoming a buzzword in television and media). My mention of the facinating possibility of instantaneous communication was meant as a closing teaser -- a idea that researchers apparently still think is unlikely, but perhaps plausible.  My point here is that of the two applications of entanglement mentioned in my post, quantum cryptography is now used in real-world practice; but, the use of entanglement for faster-than-light communications (if possible) seems to be much farther off...

Combining quantum cryptography with quantum entanglement has been a staple of Science Fiction for well over a decade (quantum entanglement more than two decades).  It's good to see that somebody may be reading this stuff and figuring out it is feasible.

I saw about a year ago that they move the maximum distance of quantum entanglement from a few meters to over 27 kilometers, so I figured the bright boys in the secret labs were working on this for the military.  Having secure, untraceable, untappable point-to-point communications is something they would drool over.

The interesting thing, once they can mass-produce quantum entangled bits (call Qubits in SciFi and in quantum cryptography), is how robust of an environment can they handle?   In deep space you have to deal with serious background radiation as well as the cosmic x-rays that happen by.

I know that satellite systems use mil-spec radiation hardened computer components to ensure they last for the desired life span.  You can expect a stray cosmic x-ray to corrupt a bit or two now and then (even on the earth, most supercomputers log an average of 10 soft single-bit errors a day but they use single-bit correction/double-bit error detection hardware and software to handle this).

Expect that they will borrow heavily from NASA in building communcation systems where they have multiple redundancies, best of three voting, and the like.

I'll continue reading my SciFi to see what we can do next...

Wow!  That is incredible stuff.

If your signature did not establish your credibility, your post could be dismissed. 

I find this theory a stretch- certainly, dislocating particle fragments to different place and times is not easy.  But can these particles be dislocated over space at time at a velocity faster than c?

I can understand how information might move 'instantly' between paerticles, but first you need to get the particle there, and this is limited by c.

Lawrence Ricci
www.EmbeddedInsider.com

Hey Princess_dascho,

You are not alone in finding it hard to understand the complexities of quantum mechanics. I belive majority of IE readers would share a similar frustration. I really don't care now a bit what quantum mechanics looks like. All I'm interested is , would it make our present insecure network secured? I'm even less enthusiaitic about quantum crytography exploits on the web in space, but more interested in our QC can help us realized ahigh bandwidth secure communication? Is it true that QC could lead to the 'death' of computer hackers or would the hackers be innovative as they have always been in the past, to find smart ways of breaching QC enhanced networks?

Hey Mary,

Thanks for bringing up this issue of the relevance of quantum cryptography to the "earth web". Isn't the web here on earth in desperate need of an ultrafast secure web? With all the breaches in  securities we are now experiencing on a mammoth scale, Quantum cryptography could just turn out to be the saving hand of a web that is facing great insecurities.

I found this title on a blog post that perfectly sums up our argument:

Computer Hackers R.I.P.: Making Quantum Cryptography Practical

Thanks to both of you for your kind words. It isn't often that happens in Internet Evolution. We seem to be at kinderhooks with many of the concepts presented, rather than actually grabbing onto a thought, chewing on it for a few minutes, and seeing if there's actually something to be said for the post.

I can add something, a theory and actually a very good one that someone might grab and go with.

Quantum Math is a system that doesn't limit computer languages to 0,1 or the binary languages used today. Instead theory says it's possible to have computer languages in multiple ways. These might be 0,1,2 with combinations higher and higher. Possibly 0,3,1,5,4 or some such. Of course it would take a lot of brainpower, with knowledge of Quantum Math, Physics and Mechanics, all three needed to make such a system work.

At 62 years old, and with a lot of health issues with my significant other (double hip replacement for one) and myself, numerous, I'd tackle the problem, just for something to do, if I had time.

My fondest hope is that someone, somewhere, hopefully DARPA or another organization, say a large corporation that specializes in software such as Microsoft or IBM or some of the open source people, the last a prospect that I find distasteful but possibly necessary inasmuch as a large number of people need to collaborate on the idea. I personally don't like open source nor the consortium that 'approves' applications. After all, I wonder how many good apps and concepts has that consortium turned down. Even Linus Torvald is seemingly disgusted with open source as it has turned out to be.

I say Microsoft or IBM because the two companies have the people with the necessary brains and certainly the money to hire them if they're not there to devote to the project. Google might have the money but the brains that would be behind the concept are devoted to making search and advertising get that company more money. Softie and Ibeam could easily set 50 or 100 people on the concept and see what happens.

After all, as Confucious said, the journey begins with a single step. I'd love to see someone take that step.

What's needed is revolution along with evolution, something that no one anywhere seems to want to begin.

jfj