It has been dubbed the'quantum enigma machine' - and has been used for a groundbreaking new form of unbreakable encrypted messaging for the first time. The researchers proved a message could be sent with a key that's shorter than the message itself, breaking the conditions defined decades ago by the'father of information theory,' Claude Shannon. This encryption method, known as quantum data locking, could one day make for super-secure systems in which it is virtually impossible for a third party to obtain and translate the message. Using a device dubbed the'quantum enigma machine,' researchers have demonstrated a new form of unbreakable encrypted messaging for the first time. In an example explaining how this system works, a hypothetical'Alice' is sending an encrypted message to'Bob,' with'Eve' being the third party The work also taps into the fundamental uncertainty of quantum measurements, which states that the more we know about one property of a particle, the less we know about another.

Exclusive Microsoft researchers, in partnership with academia, have published a paper detailing how they have dramatically increased the speed of homomorphic encryption systems. With a standard encryption system, data is scrambled and then decrypted when it needs to be processed, leaving it vulnerable to theft. Homomorphic encryption, first proposed in 1978 but only really refined in the last decade thanks to increasing computing power, allows software to analyze and modify encrypted data without decrypting it into plaintext first. The information stays encrypted while operations are performed on it. This has major advantages from a security standpoint.