For big steps in internet security, scientists turn to quantum physics

Growth of digital economy has also given rise to hackers and fraudsters who take advantage of the weak links in the internet. Now, researchers backed by the NASA have come up with a way to use quantum physics to make the internet highly secure.

The science behind this until recently, did not exist outside of lab settings. But that’s changing: researchers have begun to implement quantum teleportation in real-world contexts. “Being able to do so might revolutionize modern phone and internet communications, leading to highly secure, encrypted messaging,” said NASA’s California based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

A paper published in Nature Photonics and co-authored by engineers at the JPL, details the first experiments with quantum teleportation in a metropolitan fiber cable network.

For the first time, the phenomenon has been witnessed over long distances in actual city infrastructure. In the University of Calgary, Canada, researchers teleported the quantum state of a photon more than 3.7 miles (6 kilometres) in “dark” (unused) cables under the city of Calgary.

While longer distances had been recorded in the past, those were conducted in lab settings.. This latest series of experiments in Calgary tested quantum teleportation in actual infrastructure, representing a major step forward for the technology.

Francesco Marsili, one of the JPL co-authors said: “Quantum communication unlocks some of the unique properties of quantum mechanics to exchange information or link together quantum computers.”

Scientists who understand those rules governing photons can “entangle” two particles so that their properties are linked.

Imagine there are two entangled particles — Photon 1 and Photon 2, and Photon 2 is sent to a distant location.

There, it meets with Photon 3, and the two interact with each other. Photon 3’s state can be transferred to Photon 2, and automatically “teleported” to the entangled twin, Photon 1. This disembodied transfer happens despite the fact that Photons 1 and 3 never interact.

“This property can be used to securely exchange secret messages. If two people share an entangled pair of photons, quantum information can be transmitted in a disembodied fashion, leaving an eavesdropper with nothing to intercept and so unable to read the secret message,” the laboratory said.

This system of secure communications is being tested in a number of fields including financial industries and agencies like NASA to protect their space data signals, Marsili said.

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