Unhackable Internet

 Why it matters?

 The internet is increasingly vulnerable to hacking; a quantum one would be unhackable.

Quantum Computing 

 

A quantum internet could be used to send unhackable messages, improve the accuracy of GPS, and enable cloud-based quantum computing. For more than twenty years, dreams of creating such a the quantum network have remained out of reach in large part because of the difficulty to send quantum signals across large distances without loss.

 

Now, Harvard and MIT researchers have found a way to correct for signal loss with a prototype quantum node that can catch, store and entangle bits of quantum information. The research is the missing link towards a practical quantum internet and a major step forward in the development of long-distance quantum networks.

 

The U.S Department of Energy (DoE) explains how a quantum link will make it happen through two quantum phenomenon: the first is quantum entanglement, where two-particle can become so inextricably linked that no matter how much distance separates them, changing the properties of one will change those of the other. And since that communication happens instantly, a quantum internet could be much faster than today’s networks. The second phenomenon is quantum superposition, where a particle can exist in two different states at once. This is what enables tighter security of the information shared across a quantum network. Information is encoded into entangled pairs of photons, in a superposition of states, in data terms that mean they represent both a one and a zero at the same time.

A quantum physics-based internet will be there soon to enable us to secure our networks used in the communication. Stephanie Wehner is leading a team at The Delft University of Technology aiming to connect Four cities in The Netherlands, entirely by means of quantum Technology. The messages sent in these network aims to be unhackable.

In these years, scientists are trying to study the behaviour of transmitting pairs of photons across fibre-optics in a way that the information encoded in them is transmitted safely. A Chinese team has already tried a form of technology by constructing a 2,000-kilometre network backbone between Beijing and Shanghai, but some parts of the project relies upon classical components that can break the Quantum link periodically by introducing a new one in the network, exposing it to the risks of hacking.

The researchers at Delft University aim to transmit information from end to end using Quantum Computing, being the first of its kind. The technology being used in this is entanglement, the quantum behaviour of atomic particles. The entangled particles cannot be covertly read without disrupting their content.

But these entangled particles are hard to create and the main challenge is they are harder to transmit over long distances. Wehner’s team has demonstrated it can send them more than 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles), and they are confident they can set up a quantum link between Delft and the Hague by around the end of this year. Ensuring an unbroken connection over greater distances will require quantum repeaters that extend the network.

Such repeaters are currently in design at Delft and elsewhere. The first should be completed in the next five to six years, says, Wehner, with a global Quantum network following by the end of the decade.

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