Quantum Computing Has White House Mulling Risks, Rewards (whitehouse.gov) 22
The White House released a memorandum Wednesday that outlines a national effort to promote leadership in quantum computing and calls for security advances to prepare for future cyberthreats from quantum computing before they arise. From a report: "Quantum information science -- we'll call it 'QIS,' for short -- is a rapidly emerging scientific discipline that combines our best understanding of the subatomic world -- quantum mechanics -- with our best understanding of information systems -- information theory -- to generate revolutionary technologies and insights," said a senior administration official during a background press call on Tuesday.
[...] The announcement goes on to note that quantum computers could be a problem for digital communications and security. Quantum research is thought to soon reach a point where a "cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer" is possible. These computers could jeopardize US communications, control systems of critical infrastructure and security protocols used for most internet-based financial transactions, according to the memorandum. "Current research shows that at some point in the not-too-distant future, when quantum information science matures and quantum computers are able reach a sufficient size and level of sophistication, they will be capable of breaking much of the cryptography that currently secures our digital communications," said the senior administration official.
[...] The announcement goes on to note that quantum computers could be a problem for digital communications and security. Quantum research is thought to soon reach a point where a "cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer" is possible. These computers could jeopardize US communications, control systems of critical infrastructure and security protocols used for most internet-based financial transactions, according to the memorandum. "Current research shows that at some point in the not-too-distant future, when quantum information science matures and quantum computers are able reach a sufficient size and level of sophistication, they will be capable of breaking much of the cryptography that currently secures our digital communications," said the senior administration official.
Quantum computing, Flying cars, AI (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Things people say are only 10 years away but complain 50 years later that we don't have them yet.
Maybe that's planned. In 50 years the majority of us will be dead, making it hard to be too concerned about it.
Re:Quantum computing, Flying cars, AI (Score:5, Interesting)
The NSA had modern encryption in the early 80s, well before anyone else we’re aware of. They sat on the techniques for well over a decade until they were independently discovered and widely published.
If you’re the first one to achieve quantum superiority and the ability to decrypt nearly any modern encryption, you don’t trumpet that. You simple gobble up everything and see what everyone else is saying. You poke and prod at the bureaucrats and see what they report back. You check satellite photography and compare it against the communications you’re intercepting. You quietly gain as much dirt, recon on competing strategies, and intelligence on enemy capabilities as you can.
If someone already has it, you won’t know until after the next big war or until after some researcher finally publishes.
Re: (Score:1)
If you’re the first one to achieve quantum superiority and the ability to decrypt nearly any modern encryption, you don’t trumpet that. You simple gobble up everything and see what everyone else is saying.
A corollary to that: And if you don't have quantum superiority yet, you gobble up everything anyway, knowing that one day you'll be able to decrypt all that.
If NSA isn't doing that already, someone there isn't up to their job.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually the British through GCHQ developed PKI first in the 70's
"To make his idea work in practice, Ellis had to develop a mathematical padlock, a virtual analogue of the metal padlock. Unfortunately, neither he, nor anyone else at GCHQ, could provide the necessary mathematics. Three years later, however, a pair of Cambridge graduates, Clifford Cocks and Malcolm Williamson, invented two separate techniques for implementing Ellis’s idea. After learning about Ellis’s proposition, each of them too
Re: (Score:3)
The moon bases.
Mars base
Orbital elevators
Re: (Score:3)
We have a moon base (Moon Unit Zappa).
The Russians have a mars base (Mars-a-lago).
If you compute your orbit correctly, you shouldn't need an elevator.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We could have flying cars right now, except that Joe Sixpack will never be ready to fly one. Hell, Joe Sixpack can't handle cars that work in two dimensions, can you imagine what'll happen if we make him try to think about up/down?
You're half-right - you and I will never touch quantum computing. Government funded institutions (including governments themselves), on the o
Re: (Score:1)
We have AI right now (primitive, but AI).
More accurately, we have machine learning/deep learning that is marketed as AI. It does what it does very well but you still need someone to tell it what it should do. It really sucks at figuring that part out. It's merely marketing speech to call that AI.
Actual intelligence or artificial general intelligence is, like the universal quantum computer, still "some time in the future".
Re: (Score:1)
don't forget fusion reactors and holographic memory.
Re: (Score:2)
Movie: "Don't Look Up"
"We deal with these sorts of sky-is-falling cries all the time. They are basically crying wolf now. We're going to ignore the deadly asteroid headed towards Earth."
(/Quantum Computing)
How they treat "their" security. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is straight up how they worry about their security. This has nothing to do with us, our stuff is already compromised 10-ways from Sunday. Besides what do we think that those huge datacenters with massive computing power are for?
No no, this is basically the first insights into the idea that *their* communications if captured at any point in the past could be compromised. It's basically the acknowledgement that their old secrets need to be dug up, and re-encrypted against this "new threat".
I really hope someone out there is harvesting encrypted government comms and storing them someplace safe to be decrypted in the future with quantum computers. Surely since they are working only for our benefit there will be nothing ground-breaking found if we end up decrypting their old comms.
I sincerely look forward to the future when these "cryptanalytically relevant quantum computers" actually give us people some interesting power to go decrypt the communications of our governments past. They aren't doing anything wrong so they have nothing to hide in this regard.
Re: (Score:2)
bigger worries (Score:2)
Yes, there's always a threat. A "threat to our democracy" to give us the latest dog whistle. It keeps you focused on the other things going on, inflation, foreign influence, international relations oh, and starting WWIII. Yup, but that quantum computer thingy needs to get solved as a priority.
I'm old enough to remember the Obama CIO initiative, to get rid of unproductive and expensive systems and to consolidate efforts and purchases. Yeah, notice how the bureaucracy kicked and fought off that one?
Let indust
That's an insane question (Score:2)
It's either lead or die. At the very least if we can't deal with an enemy that has it, it will be able to wreck the financial system and paralyze the military.
It's one of those things where you have an all in bet, whether you want to or not. The only question is are you willing to suffer the consequences of losing.
Not close to functional. (Score:2)
There's no Windows, Mac, or Linux version for quantum computing yet... and therefore no database engine. We're safe for a good long while...
Chalk one up for Many-Worlds? (Score:2)
One silver lining to all this worry is that maybe, *finally*, folks are going to take many-worlds quantum mechanics more seriously. A 1024-qbit quantum computer keeps track of 2^1024 complex-valued amplitudes, and these "worlds" have a physical effect on the outcome of the computation so it's hard to deny they are real. It's also hard to imagine some kind of non-quantum way that a tabletop's worth of matter could encode more than a googol cubed degrees of freedom.
If I'm wrong then please tell me. However