EU wants to hide from Echelon

[Rolo]

The European Union is to invest €11 million ($13 million) over the next four years to develop a secure communication system based on quantum cryptography, using physical laws governing the universe on the smallest scale to create and distribute unbreakable encryption keys, project coordinators said Monday.

If successful, the project would produce the cryptographer's holy grail -- absolutely unbreakable code -- and thwart the eavesdropping efforts of espionage systems such as Echelon, which intercepts electronic messages on behalf of the intelligence services of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

"The aim is to produce a communication system that cannot be intercepted by anyone, and that includes Echelon," said Sergio Cova, a professor from the electronics department of Milan Polytechnic and one of the project's coordinators. "We are talking about a system that requires significant technological innovations. We have to prove that it is workable, which is not the case at the moment." Major improvements in geographic range and speed of data transmission will be required before the system becomes a commercial reality, Cova said.

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http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0517euseeks.html

Is this good or bad? Good because it can secure goverments, business secrets etc., bad because it can also be used by terrorists... is Echelon good or bad? What will the US do, when Echelon will meet its match - quantum cryptography?