How To Build a Quantum Eavesdropper

KentuckyFC writes "Quantum encryption is perfectly secure, in theory. In practice, however, there are loopholes. Now Japanese scientists have designed a quantum eavesdropper that exploits one of these loopholes to listen in to quantum conversations. QC's security arises from the impossibility of making a perfect copy of a quantum object without destroying it — so the sender and receiver can always tell if they've been overheard. But it turns out that an eavesdropper can make imperfect copies and use them to extract information from a quantum message without alerting sender or receiver (abstract). The Japanese design does just this. That should worry banks and government agencies that have begun to use some of the commercial quantum encryption systems now available."

Logical disconnect

[jandersen]

How can one say that it is "theoretically impossible", when somebody has made a practical counterexample? It just means that the theory wasn't good enough - or more likely, that the wrong conclusions were made from the theory.

Re:Not so hard

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought quantum encryption first established a one-time pad for secure communications. It uses a protocol to ensure that any quanta not arriving or changed in any way are discarded. Only the quanta verified between Alice and Bob get used for the pad. So, a)diverting quanta during the pad-establishing time gains you nothing, and b)diverting quanta during communication gets you quanta randomly encrypted according to a pad about which you have now knowledge.

It seems copying quanta such that no change is detectable is the only way to make this work.