Quantum Technologies and the Integration of Security Principles on Data Communications

Abstract

One of the biggest Technological marvel of the 19th century, knows as the Computer, has known huge upgrades since it’s first launch. The working principle was simple, yet ingenious as it turned out. The flow of electricity, or the lack of, translating it to a logical "one" or "zero". This simple principle was called as Digital Electronics and these values were (and still are) named Bits. From the first ever Computer ever made, till the 1980s, that was the most solid foundation, that all computers shared. The thought of "strapping" bits together in a sequence, became the norm of information exchange. This cycle continued for nearly a century, until the processing power of these machines were not powerful enough to process all that information in time. Halting this magical piece of technology was not an option. In order to diminish the processing time needed, scientists turned to a, strange but quite promising, technology. This exotic concept used light instead of electricity. Nothing comes even closer to the speed of light, so this would turn out second to none. The problem is that, even for the smartest of human kind, no one can exactly understand and predict the light patters. Even the behavior of the particles constituting it is still a mystery. As time unravels it does become clear, but we are certainly not there yet. Although "Quantum Computers" is in fact a reality, science has many mysteries to solve. Besides of a system requiring light to function properly, onto a cluster of electricity-functioning systems (the traditional Computers), is another very big issue that is braking harshly, its propagation. In this thesis, I will try to analyze traditional Cryptographic methods, stretching into a post-Quantum era. By doing so, I’ll have to tackle some inner workings of an Quantum computer. These goes without saying that I will try my best (as I am not a Physicist) at explaining this phenomenons. As a Computer Scientist, I will dip into the security of information exchange between all these systems. Not all information exchange needs to happened in a secure channel, but some of it should. Any information marked as "Confidential", such as communication data, and most importantly "keys" (system/devices, cryptographic...) are not to fall in the wrong hands, or in this specific example, on wrong eyeballs!