Quantum mechanics could make money, credit cards, and tickets immune to fraud
Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 05:30
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org)—Theoretically, the laws of quantum mechanics – particularly the "no-cloning theorem" – guarantee that any attempt at counterfeiting a credit card, bill, coin, token, etc., will fail if the object is embedded with quantum information. However, this security holds only under perfect conditions, whereas in real life quantum information is subject to noise, decoherence, and operational imperfections, all of which provide loopholes that dishonest users might exploit. Since it's impossible to completely eliminate these imperfections, in a new study physicists have developed protocols that can tolerate some noise and still remain secure.