nusratt's Journal: 1st Operational Quantum Crypto Network

[story submitted to slashdot editors 2004-07-22 22:15 UTC and AGAIN 2004-07-24 07:35 UTC] Technology Review: A quantum cryptography communications channel sends each bit as a single photon. Such a channel is thought to have absolutely perfect security from sniffing, because even observing the photon changes it, and so sniffing is always detectable. With this security, parties can initiate a session by repeatedly exchanging one-time keys until each knows that both have received an uncompromised key. 'Until now all of the prototype systems have been point-to-point links rather than networks. Researchers have built a six-node quantum cryptography network that operates continuously. The network is ready for practical applications today'.