SECURITY OF IMPLEMENTATIONS OF QUANTIC KEY DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS WITH LAX ASSUMPTIONS

Operation co-funded by EU cohesion policy (European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)) under the programme Multi-regional Spain - ERDF (2014ES16RFOP002), managing authority: Subdirección General de Gestión del FEDER, de la Dirección General de Fondos Europeos del Ministerio de Hacienda.. The source names no beneficiary for this operation. Location: Pontevedra Province (NUTS ES114); Spain. Budget: total eligible expenditure EUR 38,720; EU co-financing EUR 30,976 (co-financing rate 80%), as stated by the source. Runs 2018-01-01 to 2020-12-31. Source: Kohesio, EU cohesion policy projects managed by national and regional authorities (not CORDIS). Summary from Kohesio (English machine translation by the source): SECURE COMMUNICATION IS A FUNDAMENTAL RESOURCE FOR MODERN SOCIETY. EACH TIME WE MAKE AN "ONLINE" PURCHASE WITH OUR CREDIT CARDS, CONDUCT FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS USING INTERNET BANKING OR TRANSMIT MEDICAL OR GENETIC DATA, WE SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT SECURE COMMUNICATION. THE SECURITY OF CLASSICAL CRYPTOGRAPHIC SOLUTIONS IS OFTEN BASED ON UNPROVEN COMPUTATIONAL ASSUMPTIONS. THAT IS, THESE SOLUTIONS ARE VULNERABLE TO BOTH ALGORITHMS AND HARDWARE ADVANCES AND, THEREFORE, THEY CANNOT PROVIDE LONG-TERM SECURITY. INDEED, THE TREMENDOUS PROGRESS MADE RECENTLY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A QUANTUM COMPUTER SERIOUSLY JEOPARDIZES THE SECURITY OF ALL PUBLIC-KEY CLASSICAL CRYPTOGRAPHY---THE MOST WIDELY-USED TECHNIQUE TO PROTECT OUR COMMUNICATIONS NOWADAYS. QUANTUM KEY DISTRIBUTION (QKD), ON THE OTHER HAND, HOLDS THE PROMISE OF ACHIEVING THE HOLY GRAIL OF CRYPTOGRAPHY---ABSOLUTE SECURITY IN COMMUNICATIONS DESPITE THE COMPUTATIONAL CAPABILITY OF AN ADVERSARY, WHICH IS ONLY LIMITED BY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS---AND THUS IT IS A PERFECT SOLUTION TO ASSURE LONG-TERM SECURITY. UNFORTUNATELY, HOWEVER, THIS STATEMENT IS ONLY TRUE IN THEORY, AND THE SECURITY OF QKD IMPLEMENTATIONS IS SERIOUSLY THREATENED BY QUANTUM HACKING. THIS IS SO BECAUSE TYPICAL EXPERIMENTAL QKD REALIZATIONS DO NOT SATISFY THE REQUIREMENTS IMPOSED BY THE THEORY TO GUARANTEE SECURITY. FOR INSTANCE, REAL DEVICES BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY FROM THE THEORETICAL MODELS ASSUMED IN THE SECURITY PROOFS. ALSO, SECURITY PROOFS USUALLY CONSIDER THE EXISTENCE OF A PROTECTED SPACE DEVOID OF ANY UNWANTED INFORMATION LEAKAGE IN WHICH THE LEGITIMATE PARTIES CAN PRIVATELY GENERATE, PROCESS AND STORE THEIR CLASSICAL DATA. THAT IS, THEY ASSUME THAT THE QKD SYSTEMS ARE FREE OF COVERT CHANNELS AND ALL THEIR OPTICAL/ELECTRONIC DEVICES, AS WELL AS THEIR CLASSICAL POST-PROCESSING UNITS ARE HONEST AND LOCATED IN PERFECTLY SHIELDED LABS. HOWEVER, ALL THESE ASSUMPTIONS ARE VERY HARD (IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE) TO GUARANTEE IN PRACTICE. INDEED, THE BEHAVIOUR OF REAL [shortened; the full text is on the Kohesio page]

Original source.

Source: Kohesio (EU cohesion policy projects), European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). Retrieved 2026-10-21. Licence: CC0 1.0 (Cohesion Open Data Platform, dataset 2014-2020 Kohesio projects). Selected metadata, adapted presentation; the publisher's record is authoritative. No endorsement by the source is implied. Licence: public domain dedication (CC0 1.0).

AI-assisted summary: The project focuses on the security of quantum key distribution systems and is co-funded by the EU under the Multi-regional Spain programme. It has a budget of EUR 38,720, with EUR 30,976 from EU co-financing, and runs from January 2018 to December 2020. Suggested technology pillar: communication. Generated by AI from the public source text; it may contain errors and the original source is authoritative.