Lorena M. Delgadillo

CS 312

Prof. Wolf

04/10/06

Article Summary

Cryptography has been used all over the world to protect very secretive and valuable information. Users of cryptography can range from the government, political activists, to social and human rights organizations. In this never ending war against hacking from the “enemy”, a new technique in cryptography uses photonic decoys to trick hackers.

The article by Network World, “Study shows how photonic decoys can foil hackers”, presents us with a solution that can protect data that is transferred over fiber optic networks. This new quantum cryptography technique was developed by a professor at the University of Toronto, Professor Hoi-Kwong Lo. This technique “uses photons to carry encryption keys.” This is said to be a better technique since it is more difficult to hack the encryption of this kind. Once the computers receive the information, the computer is alerted to see which photon was good or not. This type of technique is great for encrypting large networks that can go a long distance.

Reference: Network World. “Study shows how photonic decoys can foil hackers: Technique uses quantum cryptography to guard fiber-optic networks”. February 23, 2006. http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2006/0,4814,108924,00.html