Commercial quantum crypto product - news article

[John S. Denker]

"Kossmann, Bill" asked:
> 
> Anybody familiar with this product?
> 
> A Swiss company has announced the commercial availability of what it says
> are the first IT products which exploit quantum effects rather than
> conventional physics to achieve their goals. (05/31/2002)
> http://itworld.ca/rpb.cfm?v=20021510001

Actually a couple of products, I will comment only on one
of them, the quantum random number generator.

It reminds me of using a sport-utility vehicle to drive
to the neighbor's house, ten feet away.  There are 
easier ways to get to there.  There is no reason to
believe that quantum noise has any practical advantage
over thermal noise.  This point is not discussed in 
Quantique's principles-of-operation paper
  http://www.idquantique.com/files/paper-qrng.pdf
and indeed they say there "goal is to avoid" thermal
noise.

You can harvest industrial-strength randomness from
the thermodynamics of electrical circuits, costing
next to nothing.  A draft writeup can be found at:
  http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/turbid/paper/turbid.htm

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