more on ARMSTRONG LECTURE on Quantum Crypto and Optical Networks (Forwarded)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Drzyzgula <bob () drzyzgula org>
Date: September 19, 2005 7:22:45 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: daw () cs berkeley edu, touch () ISI EDU, smb () cs columbia edu
Subject: Re: [IP] more on ARMSTRONG LECTURE on Quantum Crypto and  
Optical Networks (Forwarded)


On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 06:34:33PM -0400, David Farber wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: David Wagner <daw () cs berkeley edu>
> Date: September 19, 2005 6:22:10 PM EDT
> To: touch () ISI EDU
> Cc: dave () farber net, smb () cs columbia edu
> Subject: [IP] more on ARMSTRONG LECTURE on Quantum Crypto and Optical
> Networks (Forwarded)
>
>
> [...]
>
> Basically, today's QKE products are a bad joke.  As far as I can tell,
> they are a way to hoodwink companies with too much money into paying
> $50k or $100k for a box that doesn't solve a problem they don't have.
>
> -- David Wagner


Recently, I was asked by my employer to do an initial
evaulation of this technology. In fact, my conclusion was
more or less in line with David's, although the words in
my report were a bit more subdued than these.

In researching the technology, I found that Bruce
Schneier had discussed it a couple of years ago in
Crypto-Gram. Anyone interested should read the whole
piece at:

<http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0312.html#6>

but here's his core point:

| It's not that quantum cryptography might
| be insecure; it's that we don't need
| cryptography to be any more secure.
|
| Security is a chain; it's as strong as the
| weakest link. Mathematical cryptography,
| as bad as it sometimes is, is the strongest
| link in most security chains. The computer
| security, the network security, the people
| security--these are all much worse.

Besides this bit of common sense, I noted that no two
offices my employer might care to connect in this manner
were close enough together for a repeater-free fiber link
to work.

--Bob Drzyzgula



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