EU fires shot in new Cold War

SeleucusNicator

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Seeks to foil US, British espionage

E.U. seeks quantum cryptography response to Echelon
IDG News Service 5/17/04

Philip Willan, IDG News Service, Rome Bureau

The European Union is to invest €11 million (US $13 million) over the next four years to develop a secure communication system based on quantum cryptography, using physical laws governing the universe on the smallest scale to create and distribute unbreakable encryption keys, project coordinators said Monday.

If successful, the project will produce the cryptographer's holy grail -- absolutely unbreakable code -- and thwart the eavesdropping efforts of espionage systems such as Echelon, which intercepts electronic messages on behalf of the intelligence services of the U.S., Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

"The aim is to produce a communication system that cannot be intercepted by anyone, and that includes Echelon," said Sergio Cova, a professor from the electronics department of Milan Polytechnic and one of the project's coordinators. "We are talking about a system that requires significant technological innovations. We have to prove that it is workable, which is not the case at the moment." Major improvements in geographic range and speed of data transmission will be required before the system becomes a commercial reality, Cova said.

"The report of the European Parliament on Echelon recommends using quantum cryptography as a solution to electronic eavesdropping. This is an effort to cope with Echelon," said Christian Monyk, the director of quantum technologies at the Austrian company ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH and overall coordinator of the project. Economic espionage has caused serious harm to European companies in the past, Monyk said. "With this project we will be making an essential contribution to the economic independence of Europe."

Quantum cryptography takes advantage of the physical properties of light particles, known as photons, to create and transmit binary messages. The angle of vibration of a photon as it travels through space -- its polarization -- can be used to represent a zero or a one under a system first devised by scientists Charles H. Bennett and Gilles Brassard in 1984. It has the advantage that any attempt to intercept the photons is liable to interfere with their polarization and can therefore be detected by those operating the system, the project coordinators said. An intercepted key would therefore be discarded and a new one created for use in its place.

The new system, known as SECOQC (Secure Communication based on Quantum Cryptography), is intended for use by the secure generation and exchange of encryption keys, rather than for the actual exchange of data, Monyk said.

"The encrypted data would then be transmitted by normal methods," he said. Messages encrypted using quantum mechanics can currently be transmitted over optical fibers for tens of kilometers. The European project intends to extend that range by combining quantum physics with other technologies, Monyk said. "The important thing about this project is that it is not based solely on quantum cryptography but on a combination with all the other components that are necessary to achieve an economic application," he said. "We are taking a really broad approach to quantum cryptography, which other countries haven't done."

Experts in quantum physics, cryptography, software and network development from universities, research institutes and private companies in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland will be contributing to the project, Monyk said.

In 18 months project participants will assess progress on a number of alternative solutions and decide which technologies are the most promising and merit further development, project coordinators said. SECOQC aims to have a workable technology ready in four years, but will probably require three to four years of work beyond that before commercial use, Monyk said.

Cova was more cautious: "This is the equivalent of the first flight of the Wright brothers, so it is too early to be talking already about supersonic transatlantic travel."

The technological challenges facing the project include the creation of sensors capable of recording the arrival of photons at high speed and photon generators that produce a single photon at a time, Cova said. "If two or three photons are released simultaneously they become vulnerable to interception," he said.

Monyk believes there will be a global market of several million users once a workable solution has been developed. A political decision will have to be taken as to who those users will be in order to prevent terrorists and criminals from taking advantage of the completely secure communication network, he said.

"In my view it should not be limited to senior government officials and the military, but made available to all users who need really secure communications," Monyk said. Banks, insurance companies and law firms could be potential clients, Monyk said, and a decision will have to be made as to whether and how a key could be made available to law enforcement authorities under exceptional circumstances. "It won't be up to us to decide who uses our results," said Milan Polytechnic's Cova.

Oh, but I've forgotten, they're our allies! :rolleyes:

Needless to say we better damn well be working on countermeasures to this.
 
SeleucusNicator said:
Oh, but I've forgotten, they're our allies! :rolleyes:

Needless to say we better damn well be working on countermeasures to this.

What, they aren't your allies because they don't want to be spyed by you?

Do you want to be spyed by them, SN?

Regards :).
 
SeleucusNicator said:
Oh, but I've forgotten, they're our allies! :rolleyes:

New cold war...
Yeah, right, give me a freaking break.

Don't you any better to do in your spare time than to try to make gap between US and EU bigger every time you post?

Of course only few people listen to you so no big deal there.

But let's look the big picture:
So if US does something without EU it's OK but when EU tries to do something, it's bad?

So everytime something is done it's good and benefit for all in the west or living in the "free world" if US approves it?

There must be some sort of logic in there but I seem to have missed it.
I'm done but good luck for the next who tries to understand Seleucus and his posts.

I guess the world isn't so logical place after all.
I guess I should add rolleyes here but I'm too tired to this kind of crap even to do that.
 
SeleucusNicator said:
Seeks to foil US, British espionage

Oh, but I've forgotten, they're our allies! :rolleyes:
Needless to say we better damn well be working on countermeasures to this.

Perghaps if your government didn't distribute commercial intelligence picked up by the government intelligence agency to favoured corporations (particularly but by no means exclusively in defence) then this wouldn't be necessary.

It's more realistic to think of this as the EU defending itself against US aggression....
 
SeleucusNicator said:
Seeks to foil US, British espionage
Needless to say we better damn well be working on countermeasures to this.

Why in the heck would anyone trust a country who has the power to spy on all their communications? Needless to say we better have people working on counter measures to the counter measures before the whole world is subject to the whims of one nation.
 
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I can understand the desire by the continent to avoid spying.
But its hardly a cold war surely?
 
It's OK, it's just that SN's grasp of internationalism is shaky. He believes that any country that isn't America is a threat to America, people not wanting to be spied on is a serious threat to vital and legitimate American spying interests, and so on. Oh, yes, the UK is involved in the spying too, so clearly we are also in the middle of a cold war with the EU. Which we are a part of.
 
You only need a spy or prisoner to get the codes. Waste of time imho ;)

What would this mean for UK being the bridge between America and Europe? :confused:
 
Wow that's almost as evil as developing a European gps-like system where American went crazy about.

How dare we, we should know our place and accept that America spies on us. Surely the States does it for our own good.
 
1) Espionage is the backbone of US industries
2) Anyone not increasing the power of US industries is an enemy (Chile, 1977)
 
Seleucus , pls write a more descriptive title next time, one that isn't biased :rolleyes:
 
Now with this photon encoding, wouldn't it make it fairly easy for your enemies to simply disturb your signal? Maybe they don't want the message, they just don't want you to get the message.
 
I think we can be pretty sure the EU-countries all spy on the US. We are just not as good at it as they are (or we don't have the money i takes). I'm also sure that the EU will share the technology with the US. And that we will continue to spy on each other. The US may just have to do it the old fashioned way, by fieldagents who walk and talk. (More "Smiley's People" if you know what I mean.)

Apart, why are (almost) only Europeans commenting on this? Any Americans who would like to add something?

(I can understand it, if some Americans are starting to feel rattled. Things aren't going the way of the US at present.)
 
A good ally of the US is someone who let's the US spy on him ? :crazyeye:

If someone has started a cold war, it wouldn't be the EU which are visibally defending its industries, it would be the US/UK/Canada/OZ/NZ which have decided to create huge base to get informations on European Industries.

By the way, if the CIA and the NRA were wasting less time in stealing European Industries secrets, maybe they would be able to think about the security of their own country... avoiding stuff like the September, 11th.
 
yeah, I agree, the title should be changed.

I don't think the inventors would keep it for themselfes, but share it with the US, Canada,...
Another thing, why does it seem to some people that everything the EU does is to hurt its 'archnemesis' the US? That is: a) paranoia b) flattering yourself
 
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