Scientists have been using quantum internet for years

By Matt Vella, senior editor 

May 7, 2013: 1:20 PM ET



A team of scientists at Los Alamos National Labs has admitted to using a so-called quantum internet two years.

Where the future is being made.

FORTUNE -- Scientists at Los Alamos National Labs say they have been quietly operating a quantum internet for the past two years.

What is a quantum internet? It is a network that employs the laws of quantum mechanics to make perfectly secure online communication possible. Because the act of measuring a quantum object necessarily changes it, any attempt to snoop on a quantum message leaves indications of tampering a would-be receiver can detect. A quantum internet would potentially allow users to send messages over a network which could then be used for absolutely secure communication. (Making SnapChat look like child's play by comparison.)

The concept has fascinated security experts, but there are thorny technical problems. For example, messages can only be sent between locations, not routed as regular Internet traffic. Deciding where a communication is headed changes its state, effectively marking it.

Now, a team from Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico has revealed that it has managed to work around some of these limitations. As the MIT Technology Review puts it:

Richard Hughes and pals at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico reveal an alternative quantum internet, which they say they've been running for two and a half years. Their approach is to create a quantum network based around a hub and spoke-type network. All messages get routed from any point in the network to another via this central hub. This is not the first time this kind of approach has been tried. The idea is that messages to the hub rely on the usual level of quantum security. However, once at the hub, they are converted to conventional classical bits and then reconverted into quantum bits to be sent on the second leg of their journey.

When this innovation will be in wide use is anybody's guess. It likely won't be anytime soon. For more, check out this blog post revealing the announcement.

Fortune
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Wildfire reaches Los Alamos nuclear facility

Several thousand people have evacuated the town of Los Alamos, but officials said that all radioactive materials stored at the lab were safe from flames

Dominic Rushe
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 June 2011 03.10 BST


A wildfire rages just outside of a Los Alamos nuclear facility in Los Almos, New Mexico, on Monday June 27, 2011. Photograph: Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP

A raging forest fire threatened the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico on Monday and led to the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents.

The fire started in Sante Fe national forest on Sunday and has so far burnt 50,000 acres, or 78 square miles. The Las Conchas blaze started a one acre "spot fire" on the sprawling property where scientists worked on the first atomic bomb 50 years ago. So far several thousand people have evacuated the town of Los Alamos, which has a population of about 12,000.

According to local authorities firefighters were able to douse the the fire at the nuclear facility. Los Alamos National Laboratory officials said that all radioactive materials stored at the sprawling lab were safe from flames. The lab has been closed while firefighters monitor the blaze.

The wildfire is being driven by 60mph winds. The fire is believed to be several miles from the laboratory's essential structures. The 25,600-acre property's plutonium facility is on the northeast side of the complex, while the fire seems to be moving south and east, lab spokesman Kevin Roark told Reuters. The fire has so far destroyed properties outside of Los Alamos but has not entered the city itself.

The laboratory, which ensures the safety and reliability of the US nuclear stockpile, was set up in 1943 as part of the Manhattan project to create the first atomic bomb and still maintains the nation's largest nuclear weapons arsenal.

In a 2009 report, the US department of energy said Los Alamos county firefighters weren't sufficiently trained to handle the unique fires they could face with hazardous or radioactive materials at the site.

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