(Gizmodo) The “quantum internet” won’t be some futuristic new way to navigate online. It won’t produce any mind-blowing new content, at least not for decades. The quantum internet will look more or less the same as the internet you’re using now, but scientists and cryptographers hope it could provide protection against not only theoretical threats but also those we haven’t dreamed up yet.
The first step toward a quantum internet will barely be visible to you; maybe, instead of secure web pages beginning with https, they’ll begin with httpq. But on the back end, a new algorithm not believed to be solvable by quantum computers will encrypt online communications.
“The main contribution of a quantum internet is to allow encrypted communication in a perfectly secure fashion that can’t be broken in principle, even if in the future we develop a more fundamental theory of physics,” explains Ciarán Lee, a researcher at University College, London.
“If quantum computers are on the horizon, then we need to prepare the internet to be secure against quantum computers,” Lily Chen, project leader at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Cryptographic Technology Group said.
‘Quantum Internet’ Won’t Be Futuristic Way to Navigate
