Mitre Promises Quantum Crypto Within 18 Months
Gerald Gilbert, director of Mitre's Quantum Information Science Group, announced the possibility of a working prototype for a system that uses photons to transmit encrypted data within eighteen months. During Gilbert's presentation to the Quantum Applications Symposium this month, the Mitre scientist revealed that superconducting materials can be used to count photons at much higher rates than previously thought, allowing data transmission speeds of up to 1Gbps. Using individual photons to represent data allows the recipient to detect intercepted transmissions, as reading a photon's state changes it. Thus a message that is overheard becomes garbled. The technology is designed to be applied to fibre and satellite communications
