Quantum Computers Are the Future Nukes of the IT World
nextplatform.com
nextplatform.com
You can't remotely disarm nuclear weapons or protect an entire industry by switching algorithms.
They are a problem, and we should prepare for them, but they aren't apocalyptic.
No such thing is happening. We're still in the state of "we're waiting for someone to actually show that quantum computers can do anything at all faster than a classical computer". Yeah, it's probably gonna happen in the not so far future, yeah, there's progress. But saying anything is moving "to practice" is absurd at this point.
It's all fluff, vague nonsense about what quantum computers might supposedly do, and mostly wrong. The implied assumption is that a quantum computer can solve any NP problem in polynomial time, and that doesn't seem likely. And then, all of a sudden, the purpose of this nonsense becomes clear:
> For its part, ISARA has developed a new method of creating a compound or hybrid digital certificate
This is followed by lots of marketing buzzwords. Disgusting, really.
There are a number of ways of dealing with the security issues posed by quantum computers; most of them involve simply increasing the key length of your encryption keys.
However, if people don't think you have a quantum computer, or you're able to make it better faster than expected, they won't change their behavior and so you have a fixed target.
2. High frequency trading based on quantum prediction algorithms. (Quantum information theory) May provide for HFT algorithms capable of producing predictions based on an exponential number of information streams. E.g. imagine making future investment decisions based on _all_ trades that happen in a span of time.
@ me if you decide make a company to do either of these things.
...???
However, it can reduce the difficulty of a generic brute force search
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover%27s_algorithm
But it only reduces the effective key length by 2. Which, although amazing, has a fairly straightforward response. Double your key length beyond what was previously viewed as 'intractable'.
Symmetric encryption systems are weakened, but can easily be made quantum safe by increasing the key size.
The simplest solution is simply to increase the size of the key beyond that of the most advanced quantum computer (which is essentially today's approach ;) ). Also, you just need to exchange a symmetric key; Shor's algorithm is a special case, you don't get the exponential -> polynomial speedup[1] to encryption algorithms in general. So once you deliver the symmetric key in a secure way, using a quantum resistant algorithm, you can resume business as usual.
[1] Though in brute force searches, you can reduce the effective key length by 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover%27s_algorithm
Though the question is how relevant this is. Likely SSH will have moved to something more secure years before any quantum computer with sufficient computing power will become available.
Because that's the thing these scare-stories don't tell you: While the progress in quantum computing is moving very slowly, in recent years the progress in post quantum cryptography has been very fast.