茄子直播

photo of Hoi-Kwong Lo
(photo by Caitlin Free)

Professor Hoi-Kwong Lo receives Connaught Innovation Award

Professor Hoi-Kwong Lo has received a Connaught Innovation Award for his work on future-proofing data breaches in the age of supercomputers.

Private data stored behind today's conventional encryption technologies won鈥檛 stand a chance against the supercomputers and quantum computers of tomorrow. 

鈥淎dvancements in computational power threaten the foundation of cybersecurity and our privacy,鈥 says Lo of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. 

Lo鈥檚 team will use the Connaught Innovation Award funding to develop an algorithm that combines two existing cryptography systems, 鈥渟ecret sharing鈥 and 鈥渙ne-time pad,鈥 to safely store, distribute and exchange private information among any two parties in a network.

The work is another building block in establishing a quantum internet 鈥 the 鈥榟oly grail鈥 of quantum information processing that would allow the secure transmission of data. 

Lo says their cryptography system will be unbreakable, even at the hands of supercomputers. 鈥淥ur work is of major importance, as data stored or even stolen today, won鈥檛 be cracked in the future.鈥

Engineering