SCIENTISTS IN CHINA have created a quantum smartphone that cannot be hacked. The phone comes with a built-in module and a special SIM card that can encrypt and decipher voice calls using “quantum key distribution”, Science Daily reported on Tuesday. A number of countries have been working on similar devices, but China's looks like
" It’s a tiny embedded chipset called the SKT IDQ S2Q000 that’s just 2.5mm square consisting of an LED and a CMOS sensor. The LED shines into the sensor to produce image noise, and the sensor interprets that as quantum randomness. These random noise patterns become the basis for truly random number strings."
That’s (supposedly) how the Samsung one works. Couldn’t really say how accurate it is to call that “quantum randomness” as that’s not my expertise, nor could I say if it is anymore secure than any other random number generator, which, as you say, are already really tough to hack, but a random noise pattern like that would in fact create a truly random string of numbers. So I guess there’s that.
Curious how this one from China will tackle the “quantum randomness” problem, but it’s likely to be pretty similar in all likelihood. It does seem to be impressively secure, but I (personally, and again, not an expert in this) do sort of think it’s a bit of a marketing buzz to centre “quantum” in this, as it isn’t really what people tend to think of when quantum computing comes to mind.
From my understanding, the main benefit of the quantumness was the inability of third parties to intercept data without changing it. But it sounds like this system relies on a series of base-stations relaying the data over fiber optic cables. Each of these base stations have access to all the keys, per Yogthos’ article.