Editor's Summary
17 November 2005
Meaning from mayhem
Chaos is good, if you are looking to send encrypted information across a broadband optical network. The idea that the transmission of light-based signals embedded in chaos can provide privacy in data transmission has been demonstrated over short distances in the laboratory. Now it has been shown to work for real, across a commercial fibre-optic channel in the metropolitan area network of Athens, Greece. The results show that the technology is robust to perturbations and channel disturbances unavoidable under real-world conditions.
News and Views: Communications technology: Chaos down the line
Chaos, goes conventional wisdom, can only be a malign influence in telecommunications. But a technique that uses chaotically varying signals to transmit information more privately may help it shed that bad-boy image.
Rajarshi Roy
doi:10.1038/438298b
Letter: Chaos-based communications at high bit rates using commercial fibre-optic links
Apostolos Argyris, Dimitris Syvridis, Laurent Larger, Valerio Annovazzi-Lodi, Pere Colet, Ingo Fischer, Jordi García-Ojalvo, Claudio R. Mirasso, Luis Pesquera and K. Alan Shore
doi:10.1038/nature04275
