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back to article China flaunts quantum key distribution in-SPAAACE by securing videoconference

China has revealed more detail of its much-hyped satellite quantum key distribution network. In a paper published at Physical Review Letters, Liao Shengkai of University of Science and Technology of China and other researchers describe the experiment in which they passed quantum-created keys between Xinglong and Graz in …

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  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Coat

    All those satellites

    Must be a bugger of a job to plot the orbits so the fibre optic cable doesn't get tangled up.

    8 0 Reply
    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
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      Re: All those satellites

      No it's just like the arms on top of trolley buses

      0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    From the outline description, it sounds like this is not end-to-end entanglement (which would involve bouncing the individual photons off a mirror).

    But if the satellite is sending separate entangled particles to the two endpoints, then it is in the perfect place to keep copies of all the keys generated. Very convenient for the Chinese government.

    5 0 Reply
    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge
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      The abstract confirms that:

      The satellite thus establishes a secure key between itself and [the first ground station] and another key between itself and [the second ground station]. Then, upon request from the ground command....It performs bitwise exclusive or operations between the two keys and relays the result to one of the ground stations. That way, a secret key is created....these keys are then used for...communication.

      1 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    perhaps

    cue a re-read of the You Only Live Twice script.

    polish & re-launch the satellite nabber

    find a suitable astronautical crypto-engineer who could by relax by stroking the obligatory white blue-eyed Persian cat, whilst trying to avoid de-instantiation of the sat's-core-HSM . . etc

    2 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: perhaps

      > stroking the obligatory white blue-eyed Persian cat

      which may, or may not, be in the box.

      9 0 Reply
  4. PyLETS

    Difficult to imagine

    under what circumstances assuring the security and integrity of this kind of approach is easier than Bob verifying the binding between Alice's identity and her asymmetric public key. Until then it's interesting research, but esoteric and impractical.

    0 0 Reply

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