The Portuguese national QCI project held a workshop on Quantum Communication Networks in Aveiro, Portugal, from February 26th to 27th 2024. Both national and international speakers were invited to discuss the implementation of quantum communication networks as part of EuroQCI. From QCI-CAT, Sebastian Ramacher (AIT), Sebastian Ecker (qtlabs) and Christoph Pacher (fragmentiX) were invited to present the project, research results and their products at the workshop.
Trusted Nodes
Christoph Pacher, CTO at fragmentiX, has discussed the importance of secret sharing and trusted nodes.
fragmentiX produces secret sharing appliances that are a countermeasure against several current cyberthreats: data leaks from storage providers, any kind of manipulation of stored data, and physical disaster or ransomware attacks against storage providers. Thus fragmentiX secret sharing appliances strongly increase the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data-at-rest in public/private/hybrid clouds.
On the other hand, fragmentiX is currently building prototypes of trusted nodes. A trusted node is a tamperproof housing or building that protects crypto-devices like QKD and KMS appliances and keys that are exchanged between them. A trusted node forms a physical security perimeter using multiple intrusion detection and protection systems and provides also protection against data leaks by radiation.
Satellite Domain
In parallel to the establishment of a terrestrial quantum communication infrastructure, a satellite infrastructure for the distribution of cryptographic keys is implemented. Satellites complement fiber-based networks in various ways, the most obvious of which is their capability of supplying cryptographic key on a global scale. In his talk, Sebastian Ecker provided insights into how the terrestrial and space domain complement each other and showcased how qtlabs is supplying the necessary products for bridging these vastly different domains.
