A New Cryptography Uses The Quirks of Photon Streams

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Elyn Wollensky <elyn () consect com>

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/technology/04QUAN.html

By JOHN MARKOFF
November 4, 2002

The quirky world of quantum physics, where mathematical elements can
hold multiple values and objects can be in several places at once, is
heading toward commercial products.

A start-up company, MagiQ Technologies, plans to announce today a
cryptogaphy - or code - system that uses a technology called quantum
key distribution to thwart eavesdropping on a fiber optic
communication channel. The company, based in New York, says it has a
working model of its system and will have a commercial version
available in the second half of next year.

With the system, keys to the code are transmitted as a stream of
photons, sent over a fiber optic cable. Because of the properties of
quantum physics, the mere act of observing the transmission would
alter the photons, rendering their information useless to any
eavesdroppers.

A limit of the system is that it would not work on the Internet, only
over dedicated fiber cables in which the photon transmission can be
carefully controlled. But outside researchers say that quantum
cryptography does make possible electronic conversations that would be
immune to eavesdropping.

"MagiQ seems to be ahead of the research community in terms of making
this affordable and practical," said Dr. Burton S. Kaliski Jr., the
chief scientist of RSA Laboratories, one of the leading developers of
conventional cryptographic systems.

Research in quantum cryptography goes back into the 1980's. But MagiQ
(pronounced as magic) and a Swiss competitor, ID Quantique, are the
first to attempt to develop commercial systems based on the
technology. ID Quantique's system has not yet reached the market.

MagiQ was founded in 1999 by Robert Gelfond, a former securities
trading executive for D. E. Shaw & Company who was also a first-round
investor in Amazon.

The company has raised $6.9 million from investors who include
Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos; Walter Riley, the chairman of Guaranteed
Overnight Delivery; and Neal Goldman, the president of Goldman Capital
Management.

Industry analysts say that military applications would probably be the
primary use for quantum cryptography. "The Defense Department is going
to care, and that's big money for a small start-up to survive on,"
said Laura Koetzle, a computer security analyst at Forrester Research.

MagiQ also plans to explore other commercial applications from quantum
physics, including quantum computing. Some scientists predict that
computers based on quantum principle are possible and will be able to
perform specialized tasks far more quickly than computers can.



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