From the article:
So-called quantum key distribution is unconditionally secure–it offers perfect secrecy guaranteed by the laws of physics.
Or at least that’s what everyone thought. More recently, various groups have begun to focus on a fly in the ointment: the practical implementation of this process. While quantum key distribution offers perfect security in practice, the devices used to send quantum messages are inevitably imperfect.
It will be interesting to see how quantum computing practically differs from the theoretics of quantum physics; I suspect that efforts will be made to find ‘kludges’ that will ultimately be the source of practical problems to quantum-based security and computing efficiency. Of course, this is a similar issue that currently besets security and computing: dealing with real-world materials and accommodating imperfections (and variable modes of breaking security models that extend beyond the system being imagined) are amongst the most pressing of today’s issues.
Excited Pixels 