Transmit Unhackable Data by Using Quantum Satellite

For the first time, China demonstrated the world a way of sending data over long distances that is potentially unhackable. By relying on quantum cryptography, the satellite can send data via photons from space to Earth. This technology could be huge for next generation cybersecurity, and groundbreaking for making safer businesses, also more difficult for governments to hack into communications.

Last August, China launched a quantum satellite into space, a move which was described as a "notable advance" by the Pentagon. By using this satellite, researchers at the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) project were able to transmit secret messages from space to Earth at a further distance than ever before.

Quantum key distribution (QKD), a typical encryption technology relies on traditional mathematics, only now it is paired with a faster and more powerful computer called quantum computing. QKD then works by using photons, the particles that transmit light, to transfer data.

This encryption technique is supposedly unbreakable mainly because the data is carried via photon, which cannot be perfectly copied and any attempt to measure it will disturb it, meaning that whoever tries to intercept the data will leave a trace.