Los Alamos Lab Has Had A Secret Quantum Internet For Two Years

The central principle of quantum mechanics--that the act of measuring a quantum object actually changes it--has some pretty amazing potential in the world of cryptography. And Los Alamos National Laboratory just revealed that it has been using a new design of quantum cryptography setup for more than two years.

Quantum cryptography isn't new; the potential for completely secure transmission has been enough to attract lots of development efforts from banks and governments. You can even buy a fairly simple system right now. And these are literally completely secure; any attempt to eavesdrop is necessarily obvious, because the mere act of eavesdropping physically changes the transmission. But that means that quantum encryption has, until now, been exclusively a one-to-one connection, as over a single line. Networks haven't been possible.

But Los Alamos has pioneered what they're calling a "quantum internet." I'll let Technology Review explain it:

But scalability becomes a problem as the network gets more and more complex. The solution?

It's a pretty fascinating setup--we'll definitely keep an eye on quantum cryptography as it develops.

[Technology Review]