• Cass.Forest@beehaw.org
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    2 days ago

    But I think it’ll be sold like “this is gonna instantly transform business overnight”

    Tbf, and to my understanding, quantum computers will break current encryption algorithms, so it kind of will transform business overnight, just maybe not in the way these people are selling.

    • Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub
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      1 day ago

      current encryption algorithms

      The encryption-scares don’t really bother me. It’s as if everyone thinks quantum computers will come of age but for some reason quantum encryption won’t equally scale up to match it?

      Like, of course current encryption methods are at risk, they aren’t designed to match quantum computing and any that would, while it would be nice if it also performed on current PC’s… it wouldn’t need to in the longrun.

      I do agree that the in-between time of “Oh shit, a quantum computer was invented” and “Ta-da! Encryption that chokes QC!” is a bit scary. Here’s hoping most devs take measures and precautions during the first few warning-shot hours lol.

      • ErmahgherdDavid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        14 hours ago

        If we get a breakthrough moment with quantum, the machines will not be evenly distributed to start with. They will be too expensive to build, power and cool unless you’re a fortune 500 exactly like LLMs right now (aside from small models like llama that can run on consumer hardware). At the moment quantum computers rely on superconductors that have to be cooled near absolute zero which is… somewhat expensive to achieve.

        Unlike LLMs (oh no I can’t talk to waifu without cell coverage waah) Not being able to run quantum algorithms on your phone in this scenario would be bad. It either means your personal comms are, for all intents and purposes decryptable by those who control the quantum machines or that you’ll have to pay rent to the people who control quantum machines to have them encrypt and decrypt stuff for you. Of course you’ll have to trust them too. Also, given governments thirst for spying on our encrypted comms, it’s possible that quantum machines are heavily regulated allowing “the good guys” a back door into our chats without giving “the baddies” a way to encrypt their comms

    • frank@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      That’s how it’s been explained to me by laymen many many times. Just casually (ish, I have a math degree) looking at the math, chatting with a friend who is a quantum physicist, being involved with computers, etc I find that Grover’s Algorithm is not at all capable of something like that. I’m not sure there’s anything better in terms of breaking encryption

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover's_algorithm

      Grover’s algorithm could brute-force a 128-bit symmetric cryptographic key in roughly 264 iterations, or a 256-bit key in roughly 2128 iterations. It may not be the case that Grover’s algorithm poses a significantly increased risk to encryption over existing classical algorithms, however.[4]

      I am stoked for what it could do for protein folding, or other heavy simulation work, but in terms of proper encryption I don’t believe it actually will change much.