Secure Channel - Future Possibilities

Future Possibilities

Researchers have proposed, and actually demonstrated in real circumstances quantum cryptography in order to create a secure channel. There is at least one commercial company offering a product embodying it. One aspect of quantum cryptography is absolutely secure data exchange, that is guaranteed (if we understand the physics correctly, and most everyone thinks we do in this case) exchange of uneavesdroppable, non-interceptable, non-tamperable, data. The mechanism is related to quantum uncertainty (the uncertainty relation).

It is not now clear whether the special conditions under which it can be made to work are practical in the real world of noise, dirt, and imperfection in which most everything is required to function. Thus far, actual implementation of the technique is exquisitely finicky and expensive, limiting it to very special purpose applications indeed. It may also be vulnerable to attacks specific to particular implementations and imperfections in the optical components of which the quantum cryptographic equipment is built. While implementations of classical cryptographic algorithms have received worldwide scrutiny over the years, only a limited amount of public research has been done to assess security of the present-day implementations of quantum cryptosystems (mostly because they are not in widespread use now).