What will prevent a United States without electricity, like in "Walking Dead" or "Revolution"?

Uninterrupted electricity protects the nation's infrastructure and its computing and communication networks from malicious cyber attacks and accidental failures. But In today’s world of cyber-warfare -- phishing scams, logic bombs, Trojan horses, viruses and worms -- threats to the American power grid abound.

To maintain control, data must be transmitted rapidly, securely and seamlessly between control centers. And traditional cryptographic techniques struggle to meet the need for speed and security. Using quantum cryptography, Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a method to detect and defeat an adversary intent on intercepting or attacking power grid communications. New technologies like this system are critical to protecting critical national infrastructure, they argue.

How does it work?

In traditional cryptology, information is encoded and decoded with mathematics; in quantum cryptology, physics protects data instead, using photons to transmit a key.In Los Alamos’ system, single photons are used to produce secure random numbers between users. Once the photon key is transmitted, then coding and encoding can take place. Because the random numbers are produced securely, they act as a cryptographic key to authenticate and encrypt the power grid data and commands.

The team has also invented a novel miniaturized quantum cryptography transmitter. Called the QKarD, it is about five times smaller than traditional devices. The Los Alamos team is seeking funding to develop an even smaller QKarD using integrated electro-photonics methods.