China’s hack-proof quantum satellite leap into space leads the world
Space engineer Wang Jianyu said the quantum satellite had three successively more challenging missions, with the first being the establishment of the hack-proof communication line.
A message would encrypted by a unique cryptographic key chain in Beijing and sent to Vienna through the conventional telecommunications network. At the same time, the key chain would be beamed to the quantum satellite by Beijing in the form of photons with various quantum properties such as clockwise or counterclockwise spins, and then the satellite would relay the cryptographic keys to the receiver in Vienna to decipher the message.
Quantum properties – the states of a particle – cannot be measured or cloned without destroying the particle’s original quantum states, so the cryptographic keys, in theory, could not be stolen.
The technology had obvious military value and Micius would have ended up as a secret military satellite if not for a rare fight led by Professor Pan and other Chinese scientists against the generals of the People’s Liberation Army.
Space engineer Wang Jianyu said the quantum satellite had three successively more challenging missions, with the first being the establishment of the hack-proof communication line.
A message would encrypted by a unique cryptographic key chain in Beijing and sent to Vienna through the conventional telecommunications network. At the same time, the key chain would be beamed to the quantum satellite by Beijing in the form of photons with various quantum properties such as clockwise or counterclockwise spins, and then the satellite would relay the cryptographic keys to the receiver in Vienna to decipher the message.
Quantum properties – the states of a particle – cannot be measured or cloned without destroying the particle’s original quantum states, so the cryptographic keys, in theory, could not be stolen.
The technology had obvious military value and Micius would have ended up as a secret military satellite if not for a rare fight led by Professor Pan and other Chinese scientists against the generals of the People’s Liberation Army.