2026 Turing Award Goes To Inventors of Quantum Cryptography (nytimes.com)
(Wednesday March 18, 2026 @06:00PM (BeauHD)
from the quantum-leap dept.)
- Reference: 0181036394
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/03/18/1620247/2026-turing-award-goes-to-inventors-of-quantum-cryptography
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/technology/turing-award-winners-quantum-cryptography.html
[1]Dave Knott shares a report from the New York Times:
> On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest society of computing professionals, said Drs. Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard had [2]won this year's Turing Award for their work on quantum cryptography and related technologies. [3]The Turing Award , which was introduced in 1966, is often called the Nobel Prize of computing, and it includes a $1 million prize, which the two scientists will share.
>
> [...] The two met in 1979 while swimming in the Atlantic just off the north shore of Puerto Rico. They were taking a break while attending an academic conference in San Juan. Dr. Bennett swam up to Dr. Brassard and suggested they use quantum mechanics to create a bank note that could never be forged. Collaborating between Montreal and New York, they applied Dr. Bennett's idea to subway tokens rather than bank notes. In a research paper published in 1983, they showed that their quantum subway tokens could never be forged, even if someone managed to steal the subway turnstile housing the elaborate hardware needed to read them.
>
> This led to quantum cryptography. After describing their new form of encryption in a research paper published in 1984, they demonstrated the technology with a physical experiment five years later. Called [4]BB84 , their system used photons -- particles of light -- to create encryption keys used to lock and unlock digital data. Thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics, the behavior of a photon changes if someone looks at it. This means that if anyone tries to steal the keys, he or she will leave a telltale sign of the attempted theft -- a bit like breaking the seal on an aspirin bottle.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~Dave+Knott
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/technology/turing-award-winners-quantum-cryptography.html
[3] https://amturing.acm.org/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB84
> On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest society of computing professionals, said Drs. Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard had [2]won this year's Turing Award for their work on quantum cryptography and related technologies. [3]The Turing Award , which was introduced in 1966, is often called the Nobel Prize of computing, and it includes a $1 million prize, which the two scientists will share.
>
> [...] The two met in 1979 while swimming in the Atlantic just off the north shore of Puerto Rico. They were taking a break while attending an academic conference in San Juan. Dr. Bennett swam up to Dr. Brassard and suggested they use quantum mechanics to create a bank note that could never be forged. Collaborating between Montreal and New York, they applied Dr. Bennett's idea to subway tokens rather than bank notes. In a research paper published in 1983, they showed that their quantum subway tokens could never be forged, even if someone managed to steal the subway turnstile housing the elaborate hardware needed to read them.
>
> This led to quantum cryptography. After describing their new form of encryption in a research paper published in 1984, they demonstrated the technology with a physical experiment five years later. Called [4]BB84 , their system used photons -- particles of light -- to create encryption keys used to lock and unlock digital data. Thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics, the behavior of a photon changes if someone looks at it. This means that if anyone tries to steal the keys, he or she will leave a telltale sign of the attempted theft -- a bit like breaking the seal on an aspirin bottle.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~Dave+Knott
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/technology/turing-award-winners-quantum-cryptography.html
[3] https://amturing.acm.org/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB84
I hate when people get this wrong. (Score:2)
by niftydude ( 1745144 )
BB84 doesn't create keys, it's a key *distribution* protocol
The key itself is a one time pad generated using whatever random number generator you wish.
BB84 is a protocol that distributes the key to your communication partner using a quantum physics technique plus a public open channel to guarantee that no one has eavesdropped on or tampered with the key.
For the record, in BB84, the public channel must satisfy certain very strict requirements which I've never seen any BB84 implementations get right - e
When I meet strangers in the ocean (Score:2)
Usually the first thing I say isn't, "Hey, can we work together on quantum cryptography?" Usually it's more like... "Sharks!" The story sounds weird, they obviously knew of each other before they "met" in the middle of the Atlantic.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, as this Quanta piece discusses, they were at a large conference but had not personally met before. The Quanta piece is a good one and worth reading.
Re:When I meet strangers in the ocean (Score:5, Interesting)
Oops ,I forgot to link to the Quanta article [1]https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-cryptography-pioneers-win-turing-award-20260318/ [quantamagazine.org].
[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-cryptography-pioneers-win-turing-award-20260318/
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? They were at a conference, probably had seen each other there but not actually met until that point. Or even without seeing him at the conference he may have assumed it since most of the guests may be conference participants. Bennett had been thinking about the cryptography thing while swimming and thought he'd be good to run it by. I've done that at conferences and vice versa, though usually it's related to a talk. Admittedly people have gotten more introverted than in prior decades so it may seem unu
Re: When I meet strangers in the ocean (Score:2)
Reading is difficult.