Feature
A Twin Photon Source Based on All-Optical Fiber
The most important question in cryptography is how to ensure the security of a message between its sender and receiver. A quantum approach is desirable because detecting and duplicating a photon’s quantum state—that is, sending a message and keeping a copy— is prohibited by the laws of quantum mechanics. A new light source brings quantum cryptography closer to reality.
The art of secret communication is as old as human history itself. The two major methods for doing this are steganography, which refers to hiding a message (rarely used in modern times) and cryptography, or the hiding of the meaning of a message. Nowadays, the only absolutely secure way to encrypt a message is to shift each letter by a random amount, and to use that random “key” only once.
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