Cool! Wikileaks Cable on Chinese Experimentation with Quantum Teleportation and More

[Truth2Tell]

This may be my favorite leaked cable yet...

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/02/10BEIJING263.html

SUBJECT: PRC: NUCLEAR RESEARCH AT CHINESE ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES
BEIJING 00000263

...

In the area of quantum communication, HFNL was conducting research in quantum teleportation and free space quantum cryptography that scientists hope will result in “totally secure” communications. USTC also oversees China’s “Program 178,” although they did not describe the nature of this program. (COMMENT: A cursory walk through their labs seemed to indicate they had already succeeded in single-particle quantum teleportation and are now trying to conduct dual-particle quantum teleportation.

I don't have the slightest idea what this stuff means but it sure sounds snazzy.

This part is interesting too...

The Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) Institute of Intelligent Machines (IIM) in Hefei has developed a biometrics device that uses a person’s pace to identify them. The device measure weight and two-dimensional sheer forces applied by a person’s foot during walking to create a uniquely identifiable biometrics profile. The device can be covertly installed in a floor and is able to collect biometrics data on individuals covertly without their knowledge. When questioned about the device’s potential applications, IIM officials stated the device was being used by “secret” customers and was not available on the commercial market...

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/02/10BEIJING263.html">Read the whole cable, it's pretty interesting. Anybody on DU know anything about this stuff?

[Truth2Tell]

1. oh and this bit about nuclear fusion...

In mid-December 2009, the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) in Hefei, Anhui Province was preparing for another cycle of experiments with its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). EAST was designed to be a controlled nuclear fusion tokamark reactor with superconductive toroidal and poloidal field magnets and a D-shaped cross-section. One of the experimental goals of this device was to prove that a nuclear fusion reaction can be sustained indefinitely, at high enough temperatures, to produce energy in a cost-effective way. In 2009, IIP successfully maintained a 10 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 400 seconds. IIP also successfully maintained a 100 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 60 seconds. One of IIP’s immediate goals is now to maintain a 100 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for over 400 seconds. Currently, IIP is also conducting research into hybrid fusion-fission nuclear reactors that may be able to sustain nuclear reactions indefinitely, and at sufficient temperatures, to cost-effectively produce energy.

[TheWraith]

16. They're wasting their time, tokamaks are too lossy and inefficient a design. nt

[Truth2Tell]

20. Well, you would know more about it

than they would, right?

[TheWraith]

21. I know that countries around the world have wasted billions on tokamak research for decades.

And have produced substantially less progress from it than Bussard did advancing inertial-confinement fusion via the "whiffle ball" design and improvements to the Farnsworth-Hirsch type fusor. The energy loss involved in sustaining magnetic confinement is an automatic penalty that the device then has to overcome to achieve energetic break even, let alone generate a useful quantity of energy.

[Lucian]

2. Interesting...

[Duer 157099]

3. The extreme irony is that if the US had invested in this technology

years ago when it first became clear where it was heading....


wait for it....


....








THOSE CABLES COULD HAVE BEEN ENCRYPTED USING QUANTUM COMPUTING!!


Ah, the irony. You gets what youse pays for.

[JDPriestly]

9. Maybe they were. China is one of the most likely sources for the stuff.

[girl gone mad]

10. My quantum statistics prof. was Chinese.

We talked a lot about quantum computing. He made fun of our missile defense program and said it was technically impossible to do what they were attempting and we were wasting our money. His English was terrible, but his math was top notch.

[Diclotican]

14. girl gone mad

girl gone mad

You do not need to be a professor in math, to understand that the Missile defence program US are trying to pull out, are not able to be what it is promissed.. Im not any near a math expert, but I understand, with just what is known as common sense, that the missile chield US want to build, is nothing more than wasting of trillions of dollars, who could, and should have been used more visely on tools we all need..

In fact you might not be to clever in english either, to understand how stupid this "missile chield" really is...

Diclotican

[OneGrassRoot]

4. ...

I don't have the slightest idea what this stuff means but it sure sounds snazzy.

:rofl:

:hi:

[Hardrada]

5. Alpha Centauri is monitoring this closely.

[MilesColtrane]

6. Unbreakable encryption would be an enormously useful thing to have, and an enormously damaging...

thing for your enemies to have.

[Azathoth]

18. Technically, we already have unbreakable encryption

The Soviets used it for years. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) it's a pain in the ass to use in practice. Like most forms of secret communication, the weakest part is the human factor.

[TheWraith]

22. Really, there's no such thing as "unbreakable encryption."

To be useful, the encrypted information has to be able to be decrypted at the other end in a way intelligible to human beings. That means that any encryption system is only as secure as the humans using it are. Back during World War II, the British government's Bletchley Park codebreaking operation was able to read most of the Germans' "unbreakable" Enigma traffic within hours, or a day at the most. However, although the cipher itself was no stronger, they never managed to break the Enigma key which protected the private radio traffic of the SS. Why? Because the people using it were smarter and more careful than those in the regular army communications networks.

You could have quantum encryption, but if the message still gets turned back to English at some point, then there is always going to be someone on whom you can apply black-bag or rubber-hose cryptanalysis.

[Azathoth]

23. True

The human element will always be the weakest part of any cryptosystem.

I was pointing out that theoretically-unbreakable cryptography has been around for a while. The so-called one-time pad was what the Soviets used; Shannon proved it was unbreakable back in the forties (the proof is actually remarkably simple). More generally, cryptosystems where the "key" is as long as the plaintext can potentially be theoretically-unbreakable, but this means that if you want to transmit a paragraph of text, you also have to somehow make sure the receiver has a secret key that is also a paragraph long. Thus, Soviets spies had to carry around codebooks filled with very long random keys, which we of course relieved them of when we discovered their identities. And thus the unbreakable encryption was, rather easily, broken...

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. We were investing in this tech

in simple english... quantum encryption would give you absolute, one hundred percent, security in communications.

Teleportation has been a hot thing for a few years. Seems they are geting ahead.

Their biometrics make big brother easier to achieve.

Translation... if any of this is on the up and up... we are not falling behind, we have fallen behind. THe future will be controlled by those who can do this shit but we're no longer investing in it.

[JDPriestly]

11. We buy the cheap Chinese computer junk and live it up. They live frugally

and invest in science and technology, fifteen years from now, we will be living very, very frugally and they will be the leaders.

If the wealthy individuals in our society do not control our personal, egotistical material needs, they will lose their wealth. We will all become what the Chinese people are. And it certainly is not free.

I personally believe that a simple life with not so many material possessions

[DearAbby]

15. Yes it would

Had the Chinese had this technology Assange would have nothing about it to report.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. There is one weak link in that chain

and if you need to decrypt the crap, and Manning is able to use the key then he could still save all these things in English.

But if he had no way to play with the encryption and remove it, no, there would be no way to have a whistle blower turn this over.

These cables do have some encryption to them.

[Hissyspit]

8. I for one welcome our teleporting Chinese overlords.

:shrug:

[cutlassmama]

12. LOL

[TexasObserver]

13. If it will transport them into this century, I'm in favor of it.

The problem with China is the same as here. Too many leaders still look longingly at the 1950s as the Golden Age.

[eShirl]

17. TIME Sept 9, 2010: "China's Great (Quantum) Leap Forward"

-snip- "In May, Chinese scientists announced a demonstration of "quantum teleportation" over 16 kilometers (10 miles), creating what Matthew Luce, a researcher at the Defense Group Inc.'s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, calls "secure communications guaranteed by the laws of physics." China is now at the cutting-edge of military communications, transforming the field of cryptography and spotlighting a growing communications arms race."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016687,00.html


I knew it sounded familiar