Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Quantum information

The conundrum of secure positioning

Quantum information has been suggested as a means to prove beyond doubt a person's exact spatial position. But it turns out that all attempts to solve this problem using such an approach are doomed to failure.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Cheating classical positioning.

References

  1. Buhrman, H. et al. in Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO 2011 (ed. Rogaway, P.) 429–446 (Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. Vol. 6841, Springer, 2011).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  2. Chandran, N., Goyal, V., Moriarty, R. & Ostrovsky, R. in Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO 2009 (ed. Halevi, S.) 391–407 (Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. Vol. 5677, Springer, 2009).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  3. Chandran, N., Fehr, S., Gelles, R., Goyal, V. & Ostrovsky, R. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.1750v1 (2010).

  4. Malaney, R. A. Phys. Rev. A 81, 042319 (2010).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Kent, A. P., Munro, W. J., Spiller, T. P. & Beausoleil, R. G. Tagging systems. US patent 7075438 (2006).

  6. Kent, A., Munro, W. J. & Spiller, T. P. Phys. Rev. A 84, 012326 (2011).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Bennett, C. H. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 1895–1899 (1993).

    Article  CAS  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Brumfiel, G. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/news.2011.554 (2011).

  9. Brands, S. & Chaum, D. Advances in Cryptology — EUROCRYPT '93 (ed. Helleseth, T.) 344–359 (Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. Vol. 765, Springer, 1994).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  10. Wootters, W. K. & Zurek, W. H. Nature 299, 802–803 (1982).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Dieks, D. Phys. Lett. A 92, 271–272 (1982).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  12. Bennett, C. H. & Brassard, G. Proc. Int. Conf. Computers, Systems & Signal Processing, Bangalore, 175–179 (1984).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Schrödinger, E. Math. Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 31, 555–563 (1935).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Beigi, S. & König, R. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.1065v1 (2011).

  15. Kent, A. Phys. Rev. A 84, 022335 (2011).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gilles Brassard.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Brassard, G. The conundrum of secure positioning. Nature 479, 307–308 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/479307a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/479307a

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing