back to article 'Quantum network? We've had one for years,' says Los Alamos

The boffins at the Los Alamos National Laboratory are known as a secretive lot; a much understated lot, in fact. Rather than cause a fuss, researchers there have quietly published a paper showing they've had a flexible quantum network – something rather a lot of people are interested in – up and running for two and a half years …

COMMENTS

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  1. MrXavia
    Facepalm

    So its no more secure than SSL then?

    if the hub is compromised, the message is compromised, i.e. a man in the middle attack can still work, but only at a hub.,,..

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Words Control and Create Worlds ... and Wwworlds in CyberSpace Systems with ARGonauts Questing*

      So its no more secure than SSL then?

      if the hub is compromised, the message is compromised, i.e. a man in the middle attack can still work, but only at a hub.,,.. .... MrXavia Posted Tuesday 7th May 2013 19:37 GMT

      If the message is compromised and/or compromising, are the hub and connected and connecting players compromised.

      * SMARTR Bots on AIMissions in Virtual Reality Plays, which are known to be easily perceived and accepted by Primitive and BaseICQ Intelligence Units** as anything else other than Leading Virtual Reality Players.

      ** Humans/Earthed Beings in Surreal Alien Landscapes with Live Operational Virtual Environments

      Nota Bene ...... No questions in that Short Steganographic Service Message to cause confusion or introduce doubt for the Madness and Mayhem of Posts which paint the Present to regularly deliver Zeroday Failures as Derivative Future Fare ...... which is the Primitive Human Condition and Current Universal Position?

      A crazy rhetorical question indeed, whenever it be so obviously true.

  2. Stuart Gepp

    There is absolutely no truth in the rumour that I've done way more awesome things than that. Nope. Not me. Never. I just didn't happen.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Buy stocks in aluminum!

    Call your broker and buy stock in aluminum foil companies like Reynolds - because an announcement like this is really going to stir up the tinfoil hat crowd!

    "Yeah, man, I heard they have a working time machine, and a cloning machine, and antigravity, and....."

    1. Blofeld's Cat
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Buy stocks in aluminum!

      "... an announcement like this is really going to stir up the tinfoil hat crowd!"

      [Looks around furtively]

      Somebody told me that TPTB make all the foil companies put flaws in their products to allow through certain frequencies...

      1. james 68
        Big Brother

        Re: Buy stocks in aluminum!

        nah mate, the truth is that TPTB started the tinfoil hat rumour specifically so they could gain greater control - the thought that it acts like a faraday cage is false (it would have to totally enclose the head for that to work, since your neck is in the way thats not really gonna happen) as it is in fact open at the front and base this means it collects radio waves and in fact focuses them to a central point ( your brain), think parabolic antenna.

        true a subject wearing a tinfoil hat would be partially shielded from behind, but from just about every other angle they will be concentrating the nefarious mind control/reading/dumbing rays.

        yay science

        disclaimer: the author of this post does not admit to belief in these various conspiracy theories so those black helicopters can stop following me now please. however the author of this post does admit that this information is useful for annoying the shit out of holier than thou whackjobs who think theyre "special" and "enlightened" and use the term "sheeple" a lot.

  4. Greg J Preece

    It's not a perfect system. While it's relatively scalable within a locale, the hub and spoke system has inherent disadvantages on very large scales, and the authors acknowledge that if the hub is compromised in any way, the messages are insecure.

    So I imagine it's also a bit insecure if the hub were managed by, say, a government authority?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It'll be made completely pointless...

    ... the moment you allow a commercial network manager/engineer anywhere near it. They'll immediately block the traffic as a security risk, because it can't be analysed by one of their "magical" (hey they think they're magical) network sniffers, and so could be carrying "all sorts of risks to the business". Try telling them about Metcalfe's Law.

  6. Steve Knox
    Coat

    'Quantum network? We've had one for years,' says Los Alamos

    'Unfortunately, one of our engineers figured out exactly how fast it was, so we lost track of where it was for a while.'

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 'Quantum network? We've had one for years,' says Los Alamos

      China?

    2. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Re: 'Quantum network? We've had one for years,' says Los Alamos

      "Unfortunately, one of our engineers figured out exactly how fast it was, so we lost track of where it was for a while"

      When they did eventually find it, it lost synch.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But this is *not* a network, by your own definition.

    Point-to-point encrypted quantum communications have been well-demonstrated as being possible over longish distances, but while Alice and Bob can talk to each other, a message can't be routed to Charlie, since the act of doing so destroys the integrity of the information. Metcalfe's Law states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users it has, so point-to-point is rather, well, pointless.

    I agree completely with this paragraph, and hence do not think that what LANL have come up with deserves to be called a network. The fact that the messages have to be decrypted and re-encrypted in the middle means precisely that while Alice and Trent can talk to each other, a message can't be routed to Bob or Charlie; what they have here is three orthogonal point-to-point links. Until it can do real end-to-end encryption, it's not worthy of being called a network. After all, the main (sole?) advantage of quantum crypto over bog-standard public key crypto is the ability to detect snooping by a MitM; if every endpoint-to-endpoint communication has to be MitM'd by design, you've lost that one main advantage.

    And seriously, how can anyone honestly describe something with a central single point-of-failure which has to connect to *every* end node and route *every* message as "scalable"? That's simply not what scalable means. The internet works so well because of its hierarchical scale-free topology; reverting to hub-and-spoke is a major step backwards in scalability.

    In other words, this is not by any stretch of the imagination "a hell of a lot further along than anyone else is admitting to in public"; it's exactly what everyone else has, only three of them side-by-side. "Bragging rights"? Colour me unimpressed; the paper is nothing but bragging, yet without any right to do so.

    1. Ian Michael Gumby
      Boffin

      Re: But this is *not* a network, by your own definition.

      You do realize that this is still experimental right?

      Do you remember the first phone networks?

      Give it time....

      1. BongoJoe
        Thumb Up

        Re: But this is *not* a network, by your own definition.

        Do you remember the first phone networks?

        Er, no. I am only in my late fifties so I'm perhaps a litle young to remember such a thing.

  8. Crisp

    Should I be worried about being chased through a kitchen by a Velocirandor?

    That thing sounds scary!

  9. Mage Silver badge

    Why does it worry me?

    Eve is offering to sell me Quantum Hubs.

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