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from the new-toys-are-all-made-in-china dept.
China has launched a satellite that will beam entangled photons to base stations on Earth:
China has successfully launched the world's first quantum-enabled satellite, state media said. It was carried on a rocket which blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in China's north west early on Tuesday. The satellite is named after the ancient Chinese scientist and philosopher Micius. The project tests a technology that could one day offer digital communication that is "hack-proof". But even if it succeeds, it is a long way off that goal, and there is some mind-bending physics to get past first.
The satellite will create pairs of so-called entangled photons - tiny sub-atomic particles of light whose properties are dependent on each other - beaming one half of each pair down to base stations in China and Austria. This special kind of laser has several curious properties, one of which is known as "the observer effect" - its quantum state cannot be observed without changing it. So, if the satellite were to encode an encryption key in that quantum state, any interception would be obvious. It would also change the key, making it useless.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 17 2016, @06:16PM
If you could, then this encryption would be worthless. It's postulated as impossible, but sometimes in physics that just means "not yet". There has been some announcements about the ability to do so, but they have the credibility of cold fusion: those who claim it's there/almost there are huckseters, and those who claim to be working on it but are serious are looking at career defining/decades long work/Nobels.
That said, because that would break this encryption wide open, I doubt the government of whomever discovered this would allow it to be published.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday August 17 2016, @08:07PM
According the the Quantum Eraser Experiment, you are allowed to observe, so long as you throw away the observation.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday August 17 2016, @08:10PM
Should have used pre-view :P
How the Quantum Eraser Rewrites the Past | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios [youtube.com]