The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant to dr. Serge Fehr for his research on Information security using quantum mechanics. This was announced by NWO on 20 December 2005.
Serge Fehr is researcher in the Cryptology and Information Security research group at Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica. This group recently designed a new practical scheme for so-called Oblivious Transfer. This is a cryptographic tool known to be sufficient to secure any cooperation among mutually distrusted parties. The new scheme is based on quantum mechanics and the technological difficulty of storing photons without disturbing their quantum state. The basic idea behind the scheme is to swamp an adversary with more quantum information than they can possible store. According to quantum information theory, the uncertainty a potential adversary has about the total amount of information can be exploited by the 'honest parties' in order to secure private information.
More information can be found on PNA5's website or CWI's text at Kennislink
