Thursday, April 07, 2005

Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap
Is this cool, or what?

Quantum cryptography allows two parties to send secret encryption keys to each other while testing to see if anyone has attempted to intercept them. The keys are sent, one photon at a time, over standard optical fibers; each photon represents a binary 1 or 0. What makes the system so secure is that any attempt by an eavesdropper to intercept the photons will alter them—alerting the sender to a security breach.