

Government Lab Reveals It Has Operated Quantum Internet For Over Two Years - mtgx
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/514581/government-lab-reveals-quantum-internet-operated-continuously-for-over-two-years/

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Strilanc
Calling something that can't do routing an "Internet" is pure hyperbole.

Without quantum routers, you can only do quantum key exchange with the router
you're directly connected to. That router can only do quantum key exchange
with things it is directly connected with. If any router on the communication
path is untrustworthy... too bad.

If you want quantum crypto to be practical, you need routers that can redirect
messages without measuring or copying them. That way you don't need to trust
the network; only the endpoint you're talking to. (One possibility would be to
setup dedicated circuits ahead of time, like the original telephone system,
before qbits started being exchanged.)

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gwright
Not sure if your beef is with the capital I or with the term "internet".
Switching packets between multiple point-to-point networks is certainly within
the realm of internetworking although I would agree that routing at layer 3
would come much closer to agreeing with a stricter definition of an internet.

In any case, it isn't really hyperbole unless you think they are drawing a
comparison to the Internet (capital I).

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canthonytucci
I feel like the best feature of our our internet is the lack of a central hub
like the network described in this article, and that "internet" isn't really
an appropriate term here.

edit: super awkward wording.

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gwright
internet = generic term for a set of interconnected networks Internet = proper
noun describing one particuarly well-known internet

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canthonytucci
I may have misread the article but my understanding was that they have built
just a single network, is this correct?

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gwright
Sounds like a single layer 3 network but multiple layer 2 data links. Usually
'internet' is reserved for networks connected by a layer 3 device but a layer
2 device still has to make 'routing' decisions between the data link layers,
which is usually called 'switching' and not routing.

I'm not sure if there is a common term for an aggregate collection of switched
data link segments, perhaps "layer 2 network"?

In any case, using "internet" to refer to connected layer 2 data links isn't a
particular strong abuse of the term in my mind.

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jstanley
They state that it's impossible to secretly listen in (because that would
involve tampering with the data), but then also state that the hub works by
converting to classical bits and then retransmitting.

What prevents an attacker from inserting a device that converts to classical
bits before retransmitting?

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RollAHardSix
Exactly. The hub itself must be secure and trustworthy for an entirely
'secure' communication route, this won't work across any plain-jane network
due to that weakness.

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ams6110
The hub is where the NSA grabs their copy of the key.

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bediger4000
These researchers come from secretive Los Alamos National Labs, too. If LANL
is willing to divulge this work, what do ULTRA-secretive places like Fort
Meade have going?

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aaronbrethorst
This sounds like a job for Alex Jones! But, seriously though, we know about
this because they published a research paper. It's not like this is leaked,
classified information.

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noamsml
That's what he's saying. If this is the NSA telling us what the s-boxes for
DSA are, what's the equivalent to the DSA understanding differential
cryptanalysis when designing the s-boxes?

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dododo
i think you mean DES not DSA.

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noamsml
Whoops, my bad.

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jimbosis
Here's the link to the researchers' paper on arXiv.org
<http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.0305>

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tmzt
So it's a bunch of point-to-point links between computers in government funded
research labs, approximately where the capital-I Internet was in 1970?

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tomrod
Am I understanding this correctly, that a quantum internet prototype has been
in operation with at least the same level of performance as modern networks?
This is fantastic!

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seren
There is no routing involved, it is only transmitting message from A to B on a
single fiber. I think the term "Internet" in this context is a bit of an
overstatement.

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tomrod
I've no experience with networking. How complex is it to incorporate routing?

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deelowe
Hypothetically impossible. Routing requires understanding where the packet is
to go, combining it with other packets going through the "router" and then
sending those along to their destination in an efficient way. To do this
inspection of the packets, you have to get information from it in some way.
Our understanding of quantum physics doesn't allow this, so trying to inspect
the packet in any way will create a false positive that the encryption has
been broken. There's no way(again, that we know of) that can tell a false
positive from a real positive in this case.

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vl
Or you can just transmit routing info in a side channel that runs on
conventional technology.

