This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
There is a race to crack the most common encryption algorithms. The official estimation is that they are 30 years away from it (reduced from the original 100 years they provided only 5 years ago), so their progress is faster that they expected and this tech is now considered a weapon.
The country that gets there first will have a very valuable window of opportunity... It's a race.
30 years away from it (reduced from the original 100 years they provided only 5 years ago)
More like estimates on this are completely unreliable. As in that 100 years could have as well been 1000 years. It was pretty much "until an unpredictable technological paradigm shift happens". "100 years in future" is "when we have warp drives and star gates" of estimates. Pretty "when we have advanced to next level of advancement and technology, whenever it happens. 100 years should be good minimum of this not being taken as an actual year number estimate".
30 years is "we see maybe a potential path to this via hypothetical developments of technology in horizon". It's the classical "Fusion is always 30 years away". Until one time it isn't, but that 30 year loop can go on indefinitely, if the hypothetical don't turn to reality. Since you know we thought "maybe that will work, once we put out mind in to it". Oh it didn't, on to chasing next path.
Anything that's "30 years away" is essentially not going to happen. Quantum cryptography will advance faster than the ability to break it because there will be more money behind it.
That's not really the concern, quantum cryptography already works, we have more robust encryption techniques.
The problem is that the planet has a whole lot of saved communications still encrypted with old techniques, and those are all at risk of being decrypted later. If you were transmitting encrypted data, knowing that there's was a man in the middle, you probably felt pretty clever, as even the watchers couldn't read it... But they could record it and save it. Now all those saved recordings are likely to come out.
The good news is, a lot of old secrets won't really matter anymore by the time we have quantum computers that can break the encryption. There will obviously be a big impact on information that was encrypted just before we get a working quantum computer that can crack modern crypto.
In cryptography discussions, I feel like we're usually implying (or even saying out loud) that the encryption is secure for a sufficient amount of time and computer power. Perhaps people outside of cryptography don't know it, but I think there is a reasonable expectation that encrypted communications could be decrypted at some point in the future. We just hope it's sufficiently far enough away (or difficult enough) to not be a problem.
Honestly as soon as we get some good post-quantum crypto, we'll probably want to switch over to it asap, even if good quantum computers are still far out, just to help alleviate some of this problem. Of course, I imagine we're still going to be finding new things once the technology is real and being used. Let's hope the post-quantum cryptography algorithms we come up with actually are strong against a sufficiently large quantum computer.
Theres already a ton of datasets that have been stolen that won't benefit from new encryption standards. Steal now, decrypt later.
Governments are also hoovering up encrypted files and storing them for later so when the time comes, they can go and decrypt everything.
Gov seized your hard drive and you feel safe knowing it's encrypted, better hope the forgot where they put it in 15 years.
There's no hiding secrets from the future.
With math you can try, but I bet that in the future they laugh at the half-assed schemes and algorithms amassed to enforce cryptographs in the past.
...another argument for aggressive statute of limitations for all non-violent crimes.
Not all encryption is vulnerable to quantum.
Drives are usually encrypted with symmetric ciphers (usually AES) and these are reasonably secure against quantum attacks with a key big enough.
And with the vast majority of crimes you just need to wait until the statute of limitations, which in cryptography and quantum fields is quite short period.
I can't wait to see the clusterfuck when the blockchains unravel.
a very valuable window of opportunity…
Because that turned out so well during the Cold War.
The article suggested there are quantum computers not available to the public. Easier to get restrictive laws passed for things that arent ready for public consumption, but they all know the pulic is going to get those things eventually and put into place barriers before people care about them.
Its some long term thinking for it to be true, but it tracks they might be using something that behind closed doors, is leaps ahead of what most people know about
We're in the Information Age. Slowly, it matters less who controls the aircraft carrier and submarine. It's far more efficient to collect data, process it into information, then take small preventative actions rather than much larger reactives one.
The politicians may be realizing that processing cycles tend to centralize faster than capital. And, the future individual that controls the processing power controls the known universe.
It's a race. The winner rules the next dynasty.
I bet the military/spy agency has finally got their hands on faster cracking technology.
Infinite quantum instantiation would allow anyone with the technology to instantly find massive prime factors and decrypt anything.
No more secrets.
No more secrets.
Post-quantum cryptography enters the chat
Sneakers (1992) “no more secrets”: https://youtu.be/F5bAa6gFvLs?si=0OAFE-Pp2_Bc8AI8 Not quantum computing of course but still, a great movie.
Yup. Good movie.
Well fuck, time to make a big list of every single encryption protocol vulnerable to quantum attacks and every single foss application that relies on that and get it fixed.
A far shorter list would be the few that are not vulnerable
Perhaps it's evidence of a Master Control Program. 🤣
