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China Successfully Uses A Quantum Satellite To Communicate Unhackable Data

The Internet is an amazing invention that has brought the world closer to form a global village, but these advantages do have some drawbacks. Every country is facing extreme data security threats. China was the first country to attempt a hack-proof communication system and make the first quantum satellite. A little while back, the Chinese scientists reached another quantum breakthrough, achieving record distance traveled by entangled quantum particles.

Image Source: The Hacker News

Scientists at the  Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) project recently demonstrated the world’s first satellite for long-distance communication using a quantum cryptography technique that makes the data unhackable.

The feat was achieved using the same quantum satellite that China launched in August last year. Now, it has managed to transmit secret messages from Space to Earth at a distance much greater than the few hundred kilometers. The 1,200-kilometers long-distance communication using this quantum satellite is 20 times more efficient than an optical fiber of the same length. Pan Jian-Wei, the lead researcher, said,

“It can meet the demand of making an absolute safe phone call or transmitting a large amount of bank data.”

Image Source: Nature

The current encryption techniques rely on traditional mathematics, and worked safely so far. But, the advancements of quantum computing threaten these techniques, and can potentially break these levels of encryption. The quantum key distribution (QKD) lies at a much higher level of security that cannot be broken through.

The research was published in the journal ‘Nature’ with the title of: Long-distance free-space quantum key distribution in daylight towards inter-satellite communication.” China will launch the Jinan Project, the world’s first unhackable computer network, by the end of August. This quantum computer hub that is boosting Beijing-Shanghai quantum network will be placed in the city of Jinan, as it lies at the center of these two major cities.

Image Source: Xinhua News Agency

The researchers say,

“Any eavesdropper on the quantum channel attempting to gain information of the key will inevitably introduce disturbance to the system, and can be detected by the communicating users.”

Do you dread the future where even government authorities will not be able to access crucial information? Share your views in the comments’ section below.

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