QC Hype Watch: Quantum cryptography gets practical

[Bill Stewart]

At 05:12 PM 9/30/2004, Tyler Durden wrote:

>What's a "quantum repeater" in this context?

It's also known as a "wiretap insertion point"...

 > As for "Hype Watch", I tend to agree, but I also believe that Gelfond
 > (who I spoke to last year) actually does have a 'viable' system.
 > Commerically viable is another thing entirely, however.

"Practical" implies that there's a crossover point between
cost and benefit and that implementation is on the "benefit" side.

Implementation may now be possible, and the costs may be lower
than their previous infinite value, but the main benefits I see are
public relations hype to impress the rubes and protect against
zero-day exploits against Diffie-Hellman or Cisco IOS.
But you could protect against the Cisco exploits just as easily
with a conventional-key encryption hardware box,
and you wouldn't need contiguous fiber.