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Time Running Out for Public Key Encryption

Posted by Zonk on from the interesting-times-are-upon-us dept.

holy_calamity writes "Two research teams have independently made quantum computers that run the prime-number-factorising Shor's algorithm — a significant step towards breaking public key cryptography. Most of the article is sadly behind a pay-wall, but a blog post at the New Scientist site nicely explains how the algorithm works. From the blurb: 'The advent of quantum computers that can run a routine called Shor's algorithm could have profound consequences. It means the most dangerous threat posed by quantum computing - the ability to break the codes that protect our banking, business and e-commerce data - is now a step nearer reality. Adding to the worry is the fact that this feat has been performed by not one but two research groups, independently of each other. One team is led by Andrew White at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and the other by Chao-Yang Lu of the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei.'"

2 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. Quantum Computing Is Pure Unmitigated Bullshit by MOBE2001 · · Score: 1, Troll

    How much do you want to bet that this is pure bullshit and that nothing will ever come out of it? This is just another plea for funding. Quantum computing is the biggest scientific hoax/bullshit in the history of science. Physicists have no clue as to why nature is probabilistic and yet, they feel qualified to claim (without any evidence to back it up) that certain quantum states are superposed. What they are are claiming is that states are suppoerposed but you can never observe supperposition because, as soon as you do, it causes a collapese of the wave fucntion and the superposition disappears. This reminds me of a kid who insisted that he could jump as high as a mountain but only when nobody was looking. Yeah, sure. Whatever happened to empiricism? Voodoo physics is all this crap is.

    So yeah, go ahead and mark me as a troll but I am right, goddamnit! It's all bullshit.

    1. Re:Quantum Computing Is Pure Unmitigated Bullshit by MOBE2001 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Empiricism is always needed for laws.

      Quantum superposition is not a law of physics. It's just a stupid guess. Very stupid guess, IMO.
      I see you failed to address the fact that QM is empirically testable.

      So what? That does not mean that they know what they're talking about. My dog is a good predictor too, you know. He can predict that there is going to be food in his plate as soon as I start opening a can of doog food. So far, his theory has not failed. Big Deal! The Mayan priests had a system that could predict lunar and solar eclipses tens of thousands of years forward and backward. Does that mean that they understood gravity? I think not. Newtonian gravity can do the same yet Newton was the first to admit that he had no clue as to the actual mechanism of gravity. Don't try to force your crackpot hoaxes down people's throat on the basis of the correct predictions made by QC. Not everybody belongs to your religion. Get a clue.