Everyday life on the internet is insecure. Hackers can break into bank accounts or steal digital identities. Driven by AI, attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Quantum cryptography promises more effective protection. It makes communication secure against eavesdropping by relying on the laws of quantum physics. However, the path toward a quantum internet is still fraught with technical hurdles.
So how would this mechanism (“quantum physics allows information to be transferred from one photon to another as long as the information stays unknown”) interact with the feature of being able to detect interception (“Because photons follow the laws of quantum mechanics, their polarization cannot always be completely read out without leaving traces. Any attempt to intercept the transmission would inevitably be detected”). If intercepted and read it is no longer unknown. Does that not make the transfer between photons fail? And will that be distinguishable from other failures or would not this transfer lose the interception detectability?