Communications of the ACM
Quantum Physics Could Make Secure, Single-se Computer Memories Possible
The one-shot memory devices that recent NIST research might make possible can be envisioned as physical keys that can only be used a single time, a useful feature for computer security applications.
Credit: Talbott/NIST
Technology based on quantum physics could be used to make a memory device whose contents could only be read a single time. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's Yi-Kai Liu has devised a way to make a security device that stores data using quantum bits through a technique called "conjugate coding."
The technique enables two secret messages to be encoded into the same string of qubits, which can only be read once, so that a user can retrieve one of two messages. The quantum phenomenon "entanglement" could potentially be used to retrieve both messages at once, but that would be very unlikely in certain kinds of physical systems.
An attack that does not use entanglement will never be able to retrieve both messages from the qubits, according to Liu. Potential applications for one-shot memories include protecting large amounts of money electronically. "From a practical point of view, these quantum devices would be more expensive to fabricate, but they would provide a higher level of security," he says.
From NIST News
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