By Morgen Chirongoma
Quantum Cryptography is an interesting and exciting new field which has the potential to enable highly secure digital communication using existing technology. The idea behind Quantum Cryptography is to allow two users of a common communication channel to create a set of shared, secret or classified information. This information which generally takes the body of a random strings of bits, can then be used as a conventional secret key for secure communication. It is safe to hold the assumption that the parties involved in this communication initially share a small amount of secret information, also without that assumption, safe and secure exchange can be realisable.
The advantages of quantum cryptography against traditional key exchange method is that the exchange of information can be shown to be secured in a solid sense, without making assumptions about the intractability of certain mathematical issues. Even when assuming hypothetical eavesdroppers with immense computer power, the laws of physics guarantee (probabilistically) the secret key exchange will not be compromised, given a few other assumptions also.
However, its claim to offer absolute and unconditional communication security needs to be highly qualified for real-noisy channels and non ideal single-photon transmitters. I believe a few technical developments will be needed if the technique is to be widely accepted. This includes the development of high bit rate single-photon transmitters and the development of long distance key exchange systems using low earth orbit satellite or fibre-optic quantum repeaters.
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