In Modern world, the latest technology can be vulnerable to hacking, and the ease with which a device or system can be hacked depends on many factors, including the security measures in place, the complexity of the system, and the skill level of the hacker. Especially, modern communication technologies are vulnerable to security breaches and can be subject to surveillance by rogue governments or other bad actors. This can compromise the privacy and security of individuals and organizations. The security of the communication channel and data privacy is essential. Blockchain is one of the promising solutions because of its decentralized and distributed ledger. Quantum computing has the potential to solve problems that are difficult or impossible to solve with classical computers. Therefore, researchers are focusing on combining quantum key distribution (QKD) with blockchain to enhance blockchain network security. This new technology is known as quantum-secured blockchain.
Computer users have become accustomed to an exponential increase in computing speed and capacity over the past few decades. An enormous amount of computing power is required for the complex software used in computer animations, molecular biology analyses, computational fluid dynamics, global climate and economic modelling, worldwide credit card processing, and a host of other sophisticated applications. The demands of these problem domains have led researchers to develop distributed computing systems harnessing the power of thousands, and in some cases more than a million, processors into clusters.
Indeed, if we can successfully exploit quantum mechanics for communication and computing purposes, then we will have the chance to construct more efficient algorithms than those that are based on more traditional means. Furthermore, nanoscale computing and communications will provide the opportunity to exceed the classical capacity of communication channels. In fact, we may be able to improve communication protocols (e.g., the strong doubt surrounding public key cryptography can be eliminated in worldwide networks).
Quantum communication takes advantage of the laws of quantum physics to protect data. These laws allow particles—typically photons of light for transmitting data along optical cables—to take on a state of superposition, which means they can represent multiple combinations of 1 and 0 simultaneously. The particles are known as quantum bits, or qubits.
The main context of this article are as follows:
Quantum Key Distribution involves sending encrypted data as classical bits over networks, while the keys to decrypt the information are encoded and transmitted in a quantum state using qubits.
Various approaches, or protocols, have been developed for implementing QKD. A widely used one known as Bennett and Brassard-84 (BB84) QKD protocol. works like this.
A private blockchain is also known as a permissioned blockchain, where every node is a member of a single organization or institute. The below figure illustrates the structure of a private blockchain.
In a private blockchain, an authority can access the content of blockchain and permit other users to
access the content. There are no transaction processing fees in a private blockchain, which is like that of a centralized system; however, it is cryptographically secure.
Each piece of quantum hardware is accessible through Braket but resides on the premises of each respective provider. Once the customer is satisfied that their quantum algorithms are complete, they can run them on three different types of quantum hardware of their choice. Amazon Braket quantum hardware providers are: Superconducting qubits are an advanced technology with easy coupling, electronic control, and fast gates. It is the most widely used quantum technology.
IonQ provides an 11-qubit gated ion quantum computer. Individual ions, held in a vacuum by an electromagnetic trap generated by surrounding electrodes, use laser pulses to perform gate operations. Note: You cannot compare qubit-to-qubit between quantum annealers and gate-based machines. They are different technologies.
The LoRaWAN protocol is a Low Power Wide Area Networking (LPWAN) communication protocol that functions on LoRa.
LoRa is a wireless audio frequency technology that operates in a radio frequency spectrum.
LoRa is a physical layer protocol that uses spread spectrum modulation and supports long-range communication at the cost of a narrow bandwidth. It uses a narrow band waveform with a central frequency to send data, which makes it robust to interference.
To connect your LoRaWAN devices to AWS IoT, you must use a LoRaWAN gateway. The gateway acts as a bridge to connect your device to AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN and to exchange messages.
AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN uses the AWS IoT rules engine to route the messages from your LoRaWAN devices to other AWS IoT services.
Vulnerabilities and data loss affect communication network infrastructure and services developed for highly secure bandwidth-hungry applications such as military, finance utilities, and other government services, and cause a large amount of data and revenue loss. Hence, blockchain technology has been adopted to securely transmit data between untrusted nodes in networks. However, blockchain will be vulnerable once quantum computers become easily available. Hence, quantum technology-based solutions can provide opportunities to secure blockchain networks.
This article provided a broad view of the quantum-secured blockchain technology and focused on the current research efforts in developing secure and robust communication channel. This article began with a brief overview of blockchain technology, and concept of one of the most promising applications of quantum communication, i.e., QKD with its secret key generation process using the BB84 protocol. The reasons behind integrating QKD into the blockchain to design a quantum-secured blockchain and using quantum-secured blockchain in Quantum networks were discussed in this article. A general distributed quantum-secured blockchain communication network architecture was presented. The architecture describes the process of how users can create communication channel more secure and trusted against various attacks. This article raised interest towards enhancing security in networks and various communication-based application using quantum-secured blockchain.
