Photonics installing fiber optics network
Jenny Paul
Issue date: 3/16/06 Section: News
In recent months, Boston University researchers have collaborated with a local company and researchers from Harvard University to continue work on a highly secure communication network that runs between BU's Photonics Center, Harvard and offices at the Cambridge-based BBN Technologies.
The network will allow communication between two points to be encrypted through technological keys, making it almost completely safe and impossible to crack. The use of this technology eliminates the need for a human to decrypt a coded message.
Researchers and engineers combined forces to create the world's first quantum cryptography network, which debuted in 2004, according to a BBN press release. According to natural sciences professor Gregg Jaeger, the project, which began in 2001 after the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency provided funding, allows two individuals to safely communicate information over a considerable distance through the use of coding.
"When developed in the large scale, it will allow for perfectly safe governmental and commercial communications, which cannot be usefully intercepted by criminals or foreign powers," he said.
According to BBN's press release, the team made advances in the system last June, finishing construction of the metropolitan-area network, allowing cryptography to be used between BU, Harvard and BBN.
Jaeger said the team made another important innovation involving connected particles last month when Senior Research Associate Martin Jaspan collected two distant light particles, which are highly difficult to detect, through a fiberoptic cable.
"I have been leading the effort to build the entangled photon source," Jaspan said. "The main thing [BBN] done is to build several quantum cryptographic networks ... an entangled quantum cryptography system is one more type."
In essence, Jaeger said, the use of "keys," enabled by quantum physics, allows for secure communication between two people who do not need to rely on a person to distribute the keys.
The network will allow communication between two points to be encrypted through technological keys, making it almost completely safe and impossible to crack. The use of this technology eliminates the need for a human to decrypt a coded message.
Researchers and engineers combined forces to create the world's first quantum cryptography network, which debuted in 2004, according to a BBN press release. According to natural sciences professor Gregg Jaeger, the project, which began in 2001 after the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency provided funding, allows two individuals to safely communicate information over a considerable distance through the use of coding.
"When developed in the large scale, it will allow for perfectly safe governmental and commercial communications, which cannot be usefully intercepted by criminals or foreign powers," he said.
According to BBN's press release, the team made advances in the system last June, finishing construction of the metropolitan-area network, allowing cryptography to be used between BU, Harvard and BBN.
Jaeger said the team made another important innovation involving connected particles last month when Senior Research Associate Martin Jaspan collected two distant light particles, which are highly difficult to detect, through a fiberoptic cable.
"I have been leading the effort to build the entangled photon source," Jaspan said. "The main thing [BBN] done is to build several quantum cryptographic networks ... an entangled quantum cryptography system is one more type."
In essence, Jaeger said, the use of "keys," enabled by quantum physics, allows for secure communication between two people who do not need to rely on a person to distribute the keys.
