Quantum Cryptography (update)
September 4, 2008 Leave a comment
Over a year ago I was posting about advances on practical quantum cryptography. In particular on the commercial side of it. Since then I’ve been keeping an eye on the news and everything is very quiet on this front with the exception of id Quantique.
As far as I know they have the only commercial implementation of a quantum key distribution (QKD) system. They are advertising a hybrid system in which a quantum channel is used to exchange the encryption keys for a AES encrypted classical channel. From the latest news at their website I can guess they figured out that without a standard to conform to, the sales of any new type of encryption system is an uphill battle.
The arXiv has a recent paper on practical quantum cryptography in which the authors mention mainly QKD as the only quantum technology mature enough to be commercial.
Other than the above mentioned systems, quantum cryptography is still a promise that has not delivered real, usable products.
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