Quantum Enigma Machine

The World’s First Quantum Enigma Machine Unveiled

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The World's First Quantum Enigma Machine Unveiled

Over 70 years ago a very intelligent mathematician and engineer named Claude Shannon, known as “the father of information theory,” started to pave the way for computing and communications by building some of the world’s first computers.  He was also a major contributor to the field of cryptology and in 1949, in his published paper called ‘Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems‘ that proved it was quite possible to send a secure message using an encryption key that is entirely random and used only once.

Now, with the help of Shannon’s research and contributions, quantum physicists have been able to demonstrate that the process will work much better when using quantum rules.  The scientists state that a message can be sent with an encryption key of a different size to that of its message in the quantum world.So, it has been very exciting times for Daniel Lum and his team at Rochester, New York as they reveal their world’s first fully working quantum enigma machine.

The World's First Quantum Enigma Machine Unveiled

The previous Enigma machine used a single use pad and worked by attaching a random number to each digit of the message that can only be read by reversing the process.  Both the sender and receiver must be the only people with the list of random numbers, and this is longer than the actual message.

With the quantum enigma machine, quantum keys are used to encrypt the message to ensure maximum security of the data.  This method works by encoding information in a quantum object and altering the state of it with a random operation.  By doing this it ensures the data can only be retrieved again by reversing that same random operation, but unlike the original enigma machine, the quantum key can be much shorter than the actual message.

With technology advancing at the rapid rate that it is, it’s no surprise that we have developed these enhanced encryption machines.  And, with extended research and development who knows how much further we can go with these machines and they could well be available for commercial use in the very near future.

Unbreakable Encryption: Work Has Begun on the World’s First Quantum Enigma Machine

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The University of Rochester’s new quantum enigma machine is taking data encryption to a whole new level. This means shorter encryption keys and more difficult message interception.

DATA LOCKING

Need a way to prevent the enemy from intercepting and deciphering your message?

American mathematician Claude Shannon, AKA the “father of information theory” had a way to do it. He came up with a binary system that could transmit messages under three conditions: the key is random, used only once, and is at least as long as the message itself. A long key, though, sounds like a pain.

Several recent studies in cryptography and encryption have led scientists to theorize that we could send an unbreakable encrypted message with a key that is much shorter than the message itself. Now, the theory is seeing a promising future as researchers from the University of Rochester, led by Daniel Lum, have developed a quantum enigma machine.

Schematic Diagram of the Quantum Enigma Machine
Schematic Diagram of the Quantum Enigma Machine. 

Quantum data locking is a method of encryption advanced by Seth Lloyd, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He discussed a theoretical machine that could actually encrypt the messages we send over the internet through the use of photons, light’s smallest particles.  These particles would carry encrypted messages online that use photon’s different variables to generate a key. This encryption method is called quantum data locking.

Unlike the binary method, quantum data locking makes use of light waves’ features– such as angle of tilt, wavelengths, and amplitude– to generate keys that could encrypt messages.  Because these features are a lot more than 1s and 0s, the keys that can be generated can actually be shorter than the message itself.

A QUANTUM ENIGMA

The party sending the message will use the machine to generate photons that go through a spatial light modulator (SLM) that will transform the message into an encrypted form.  This means that the features like amplitude and tilt have been changed and the encrypted photon may now appear to be a scrambled form that only the receiving end could understand with the use of their own SLMs that could actually flatten, refocus and translate the message back to it’s original form.

“While our device is not 100 percent secure, due to photon loss,” said Lum, “it does show that data locking in message encryption is far more than a theory.”

Although this has been a great breakthrough in the study of quantum physics and cryptography, there is still a lot of work to be done. The team is currently looking at optic fiber as the most practical means to implement this machine.