Credit card fraud could be stopped by Quantum Cryptography

In the future, identity thieves and Internet hackers may find themselves out of a job - or at least that's what one Calgary scientist is hoping. Wolfgang Tittel, from the University of Calgary's Centre for Information Security and Cryptography, is working on a way to secure personal information to stop those trying to gain unauthorized access. His approach marries quantum information science with encryption technology. The offspring of these - he hopes - will be a system that moves data on light particles so fast, it essentially teleports it from one end to another.

To achieve this ultra-secure state, Dr Tittel is using fibre optics to send data on photons. The fibre optics would act as superhighways for bits of information. Hypothetically, this data would move so fast that any attempt by a hacker to obtain private information would interrupt the flow and alter the encryption in such a way that it would show it has been tampered with.

A fundamental law in quantum physics holds that it is impossible for a hacker to access a key without changing it: In this application, security codes would be carried in bundles with a particular configuration. If the bundles were disrupted during transmission, they re-configure and the information scrambles.