Electronics For Quantum Communications

Moving from classic encryption algorithms with increasing key lengths to communication based on entangled quanta. Our secure digital communications so far have functioned on the principle of key-based encryption. This involves generating a key of appropriate length, which is then used to encrypt the data. Because distributing the keys is difficult, the keys are reused rather than regularly generating new ones. The regular use of the keys opens up the encryption process to attacks by mathematical methods. Protection against such attacks currently is afforded by appropriate key lengths, since the compute time required by the mathematical methods for key recovery increases exponentially with the key length. This means the key lengths must be adapted already today to the growing potential of computing technology.