Quantum cryptography breakthrough to allow 'perfectly secure' information sent globally

11/04/2013 - 00:00

Breakthrough guarantees “unconditional” security of information by harnessing quantum theory and relativity, and has been successfully demonstrated on a global scale for the first time.

Scientists sent encrypted data between pairs of sites in Geneva and Singapore, kept “perfectly secure” for fifteen milliseconds - putting into practice what cryptographers call a ‘bit commitment’ protocol, based on theoretical work by study co-author Dr Adrian Kent from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.