Northwestern University and BBN Technologies of Cambridge, Mass have demonstrated a technique for encrypting data with a little help from lasers.
The volume and type of sensitive information being transmitted over data networks continues to grow at a remarkable pace," said Prem Kumar, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern’s Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and co-principal investigator on the project.
Continuity Central reports:
The combined QKD/AlphaEta system has been demonstrated in a nine km link between BBN headquarters and Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. The AlphaEta encrypted signal carried OC-3 (155Mb/s) SONET data between the two nodes. A fresh encryption key of about 1 kilobit was repetitively loaded every three seconds. In a separate test, the AlphaEta encrypted signal was looped back multiple times to create an effective 36 km link where more than 300 consecutive key exchanges were demonstrated.