News Russia and China successfully test quantum communication over satellite — 3,800-kilometer test explores possible encrypted networks for BRICS cou...

[Admin]

A quantum communications test was conducted over the satellite "Mozi" between Russia and China, over a distance of 3,800 kilometers.

Russia and China successfully test quantum communication over satellite —
3,800-kilometer test explores possible encrypted networks for BRICS cou... : Read more

 

[hotaru251]

"Quantum communication networks could have many uses, but for now, quantum systems would ideally be suited to scientific research."

ideally the world would be at peace but we all know the world doesnt follow the ideal route ;/

 

[bit_user]

For those unfamiliar, "quantum communication" refers to communication using "qubits". Qubits, like traditional "bits," can contain binary information. However, qubits are also incredibly fragile to outside interference, which means that it's very easy for a quantum computer to tell if qubits have been intercepted or interfered with in some way.

From what I've read, the qubits are just used to send the encryption key. The error rate is still too high for the actual data to be sent via qubits.

 

[bit_user]

ideally the world would be at peace but we all know the world doesnt follow the ideal route ;/

As we live in a world of finite resources, there will always be conflict. Nature has shown this, time and again.

When you also account for the effects of human ambition, it's a wonder there aren't even more conflicts than what we currently see.

 

[COLGeek]

Lets stay on topic folks. Thanks.

 

[usertests]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution

Is their plan to use one-time pads, AES, or what?

 

[edzieba]

From what I've read, the qubits are just used to send the encryption key. The error rate is still too high for the actual data to be sent via qubits.

Not so much the error rate but the data rate (though error rate is one factor affecting the data rate). But even if data rate were arbitrary, there would still be little reason to use it as the communication channel.

'Quantum Encryption' is not encryption itself, it is a key distribution method that can be proven not to have been intercepted in transit. That's it. Sending plaintext bits over the entangled channel us utterly worthless, as all that would mean is you would be able to prove that somebody has or has not read your plaintext message (which by then is too late, because they've already read it). The goal is to send the key via the entangled channel, confirm it was not intercepted (discard it if it was), then use that provably un-intercepted key to then encrypt data that is classically encrypted and sent over a classical channel. If you have enough key bits then you can use a one-time-pad and have mathematically unbreakable encryption, otherwise you use a really big key and classical quantum-computation-resistant (quantum computation and quantum key distribution are effectively unrelated other than having 'quantum' in the name) classical encryption to make decryption particularly difficult if the ciphertext is intercepted.

For this particular article: China has been demonstrating quantum key distribution via satellite for several years, this new development is just shipping an endpoint to Russia.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

As said earlier, stay on topic. The off topic material has been removed. Next comes the posters.

 

[COLGeek]

This thread has come to a close. Thank you to those who stayed on topic.