this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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About how far does this leave us from a usable quantum processor? How far from all current cryptographic algorithms being junk?
At least a week, probably more
The latest versions of TLS already have support post-quantum crypto, so no, it's not all of them. For the ones that are vulnerable, we're way, way far off from that. It may not even be possible to have enough qbits to break those at all.
Things like simulating medicines, folding proteins, and logistics are much closer, very useful, and more likely to be practical in the medium term.
Is there gov money in folding proteins though? I assume there’s a lot of 3 letter agencies what want decryption with a lot more funding.
There's plenty of publicly funded research for that, yes.
Three letter agencies also want to protect their own nation's secrets. They have as much interest in breaking it as they do protecting against it.
yes of course, and nuclear arsenal build up doesn't exist because govts have that kinda foresight
Except there's evidence they do, in fact, go both directions.
For example, DES had its s-boxes messed with by the NSA. At the time, the thought was that they were intentionally weakening it. Some years later, public cryptographers developed differential cryptanalysis for breaking ciphers. They found that the new s-boxes in DES made it resistant to differential cryptanalysis. It appears the NSA had already developed the technique and had made DES stronger, not weaker. Because again, they need to protect their own stuff, too, and they used and promoted DES to get there.
They also gave it a really short key that was expected to be broken by the '90s, which is also exactly what happened.
They appear to be going a similar direction with elliptic curves. They seem to be resistant against certain attacks, and the NSA was promoting them earlier than most public cryptographers.
Algorithms will be easier and faster to fix than the process of getting this breakthrough to viability