An unbreakable code - QuintessenceLabs technology in ABC TV's Catalyst

Cryptography the science of code making keeps our defence, business and financial transactions, and control of public infrastructure, safe from spies, thieves and terrorists.

Current encryption methods rely on incredibly difficult mathematical problems, but that may change in the future. A team of physicists and engineers from The Australian National University and the University of Queensland have just won the 2006 University of New South Wales Eureka Prize for Scientific Research for inventing an unbreakable code based on quantum physics.

Their invention uses an invisible laser beam. It might sound futuristic, but it is already tried, tested and far enough advanced to have captured the interest, and funding, of the Australian Defence Force.

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Science & Technology

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• Quintessencelabs
• quantum
• cryptography
• key
• distribution
• secure
• communication
• technology