Foreign Policy
NET EFFECT: WEB SITES THAT SHAPE THE WORLD 
September/October 2004 

EU’s Quantum Leap 
By Soyoung Ho 
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2692

Alarmed by supposed industrial espionage, the European Union 
(EU) is seeking to develop a $13 million secure communication 
system based on quantum cryptography (www.arcs.ac.at/IT/ITS/MF/
quanten.htm) to counter U.S. eavesdropping systems such as the 
National Security Agency’s Echelon, which some allege intercepts
phone, e-mail, and fax messages. If successful, the EU’s 
impenetrable system, which embeds information on particles of 
light, will make an “essential contribution to the economic 
independence of Europe,” says Austrian project coordinator 
Christian Monyk. Although claims of industrial espionage remain 
unproven, GlobalSecurity.org Director John Pike says that the 
United States might use such surveillance to determine if 
European firms used bribes to win contracts. And there may be 
more incentive to secure communication in an age of trans-
Atlantic acrimony. The United States’ Echelon also coordinates 
with intelligence agencies in the United Kingdom, Canada, 
Australia, and New Zealand. The French and Germans have long 
resented U.S.-British snooping. As Pike notes, “Ever since the 
end of World War II, the French keep asking the British ‘are you
in or out?’”