Quantum Encryption: Uncrackable & Unhackable
PROBLEM: A (Alice) must get a secret message (plaintext) past an eavesdropper (Eve) to B (Bob).
SOLUTION: Totally Random QM Encryption
UNCRACKABLE: No amount of computational power gives Eve any advantage in recovering the plaintext from the encoded message (ciphertext) because the ciphertext is TOTALLY RANDOM. Only possible way to decode the ciphertext is with the key!
UNHACKABLE: Alice and Bob will know if Eve gets any information about the key, because then Alice’s and Bob’s sides of the key won’t be "curiously correlated" any more.
So you are just minding your own business when out of the blue...
You find yourself trapped in a crypt and must solve a seemingly intractable problem in order to survive. The challenge? Transmit a secret message past an all-seeing eye! Take heart, there's a way out, if only you can keep your wits (and trusty superquantum quoins) about you!
More on Quantum Encryption and Cryptography
Articles:
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Artur Ekert is one of the founders of quantum cryptography. To escape from the Crypt in Totally Random, our protagonists follow the protocol in Ekert's classic paper:
- A. Ekert: Quantum cryptography based on Bell's theorem
For a more readable account and some background, see Ekert's articles on cryptography in +Plus Magazine: