Quantum hacking lab

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Communication security has always played a large role in human affairs, and is a fact of daily life in our today's information society. It is provided by cryptography, whose history has been a long history of failures. Constant tension between codemakers and codebreakers brought us increasingly stronger cryptographic techniques, and increasingly better ways to break them. Mathematical cryptographic techniques that we rely on today are not unbreakable. We know that a future quantum computer will break them, and perhaps even a classical cracking method will be found. Can this cat-and-mouse game ever end? Is perfect cryptography ever possible? Twenty years ago, a hope emerged. New cryptography, based on the laws of physics and not on conjectured complexity of mathematics, was invented. Quantum cryptography promised to detect any attempt of eavesdropping that was physically possible. In laboratories, machines were built that sent single photons over progressively longer distances. A few years ago, commercial products were installed to the first customers. Did our understanding of the laws of Nature finally brought a triumph over a millennia-old practical problem that now looked trivial? A few inquisitive minds still wondered, and took apart these machines. What they saw was that no machine could be built perfect. Then these quantum hackers devised ways to exploit the small inevitable flaws, and still yet steal the secret information! The manufacturers responded by plugging the known holes. Scientists began refining the quantum communication schemes and protocols to make them insensitive to certain - or perhaps all? - machine flaws. The hackers meanwhile kept finding new chinks in the armor. This grant attempts to answer the question of whether it is possible to have the perfect communication security in principle, and also in practice. We will systematically examine imperfections in quantum communication technology, and countermeasures to them. We will see if security certification standards can be introduced. We hope that an understanding will emerge if and how truly secure quantum communication and cryptography based on the laws of physics can be implemented. Impact on Canada and the world can be huge.