Scienceblogtwo

There is a plenty of really private information online. Generally, advanced encryption methods ensure that such information cannot be intercepted and read. Future high-performance quantum computers, however, might be able to quickly crack these secrets. For this reason, it is fortunate that quantum mechanical techniques not only provide brand-new, significantly quicker algorithms but also highly effective cryptography. According to the jargon, quantum key distribution (QKD) is secure from attacks on the communication channel but not from attacks or manipulations of the devices themselves. Because of this, the gadgets might output a key that the manufacturer had previously stored and might have given to a hacker. With device-independent QKD, it's an entirely other story (abbreviated DIQKD). The device has no impact on the encryption protocol. Although this technology has been theoretically understood since the 1990s, it has only just been empirically tested by a multinational resear...