No, the sky isn’t falling, but Q Day is coming, and it won’t be as expensive as thought.

  • Rando@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Doesn’t quantum proof encryption exist already? I thought I learned that in college more than a decade ago… The only reason its not viable yet is because hardware was not powerful enough to run it without being slow.

    I could be misremembering though its been a long time

    • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOPM
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      1 day ago

      It does and many security or privacy oriented services have already implemented post quantum encryption, but majority of the internet still relies on AES-256 or similar if not worse.

      • Rossphorus@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        AES-256 is fine actually. The best known quantum attack reduces key strength from 256 bits to 254.4 bits. The problem is that in order to use AES (which is a symmetric encryption scheme) you need to exchange keys using an asymmetric system like RSA, which is known to be weak to quantum attacks.

  • Mangoholic@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Why the focus on breaking encryption. Can these computers not be used for better things

    • someacnt@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      I learned that QC can be used for general search problems, so it could get used for more efficient web browsing, etc. But those are relatively more difficult tasks, I guess.

    • hoch@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      In a perfect world, yes. But instead, we have countries like Russia (and probably now the US) which would love to use this technology for nefarious purposes.

      • parzival@lemmy.org
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        1 day ago

        Not just the us now, the us at any point in history since encryption would’ve used quantum to break it

  • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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    2 days ago

    Crypto currency is so intertwined with the global economy and major banks that proof of a hacked bitcoin address would destroy the world’s markets overnight