Encryption Revolution

From 2theadvocate.com: After 20 years of research, an encryption process is emerging that is considered unbreakable because it employs the mind-blowing laws of quantum physics. In November, a small startup called MagiQ Technologies Inc. began selling what appears to be the first commercially available system that uses individual photons to transfer the numeric keys that are widely used to encode and read secret documents.

MagiQ (pronounced “magic,” with the “Q” for “quantum”) expects this will appeal to banks, insurers, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies and other organizations that transmit sensitive information. “We think this is going to have a huge, positive impact on the world,” said Bob Gelfond, MagiQ’s founder and chief executive. Encryption schemes commonly used now are considered safe, though they theoretically could be broken someday.

But even before that day arrives, Gelfond believes quantum encryption is superior in one important way. In some super-high-security settings, people sharing passwords and other information must have the same key, a massive string of digits used to encode data. Sometimes the keys will be transferred by imperfect means — via courier or special software. They are not changed very often and can be susceptible to interception. Quantum encryption technology solves the problem of key distribution by using the most fundamental principles of physics.
Quantum encryption employs one of the defining discoveries of physics: Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which says subatomic particles exist in multiple possible states at once, however hard as that may be to imagine, until something interacts with them. The product of MagiQ is very simple to deploy, and also just the first step on a deeper quest to use quantum physics.