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Technology

Deter quantum hackers by hiding the photon keys

By Kate Mcalpine

9 June 2010

SPOTTING a lone messenger in a crowd of decoys is tricky – a concept that might make it possible to improve the security of quantum cryptography.

Quantum links are said to be unhackable because the “key” used to establish a secure channel is encoded into the spin of a photon. If the photon is intercepted, it becomes altered in a detectable way. However, hackers have discovered loopholes that allow them to escape detection, for instance, by intercepting the photons and replacing them with copies.

Now Steve Harris’s team at in California has developed a photon-hiding system to make…

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