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Quantum Computer Security? NASA Doesn't Want To Talk About It (csoonline.com)
itwbennett writes: At a press event at NASA's Advanced Supercomputer Facility in Silicon Valley on Tuesday, the agency was keen to talk about the capabilities of its D-Wave 2X quantum computer. 'Engineers from NASA and Google are using it to research a whole new area of computing — one that's years from commercialization but could revolutionize the way computers solve complex problems,' writes Martyn Williams. But when questions turned to the system's security, a NASA moderator quickly shut things down [VIDEO], saying the topic was 'for later discussion at another time.'
Ahhh well, just another phase in the evolution of NASA from a can do engineering organization, to a can't do political pork barrel.
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Like they are afraid of h4x0rs?
It's a news conference and they likely weren't prepared to field security questions. That doesn't mean the security is lacking. It just isn't what they were there to talk about.
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...a NASA moderator quickly shut things down [VIDEO], saying the topic was 'for later discussion at another time.'
No, you may not ask us how the NSA plans to use the d-wavies to make mince meat of all existing encryption protocols.
I'm wondering if this fits in with this story about a quantum computing grant for IBM, as well: http://www.zdnet.com/article/i...
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The "NASA moderator quickly shut things down?"
Watch the video. Who gives a fuck?
By shutting it down during questions about security, it could mean they don't have any more prepared answers and don't want to talk about it. That's not what the press event was for. csoonline's headline is making it sound like the questioner was asking Dangerous Questions About Black-Op Shit We're Not Supposed To Talk About.
As a scientist working with quantum computing I can explain exactly why we dont talk about security and quantum computing. Last month we executed a security benchmark against it, and unfortunely the act of measuring the system security managed to accidentally change the entire quantum computer into a loaf of artisinal bread. We worked hard to change it back, by attempting to measure how inseucure the device was, but in turn only managed to collapse the waveform and ended up with a loaf of bread that was also a quantum computer. Weve not been entirely truthful with the public about this in the past but we can assure you that once we assemble what our team is tentatively referring to as a wheel of quantum swiss and a quantum superposition of 3 kinds of smoked meat, this hamiltonian evolution of delicious cold cut should get us back to a regular quantum computer. security concerns so far are centered around penetration attacks, and keith on the second floor trying to use the quantum artisinal loaf for a peanut butter and banana (regular, not quantum) sandwich.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Just watched TFV, and I would say the summary is misleading when it states that " a NASA moderator quickly shut things down." It was not quick. The question was rather routine about the fact NASA and well as other fed agencies had had their systems targeted for hacking and whether the D-Wave had any special protection. The speaker remarked that the question was a bit off topic from the press announcement, but did acknowledge that these computer systems would be targets, and that without going into detail, said that access controls are in place to protect the systems. He basically gave as complete an answer to the question as was merited. It was only after he finished speaking that the NASA moderator calmly said the topic could be discussed at a later time. It wasn't quick, nobody was cut off, or prevented from answering the question.
All modern crypto, except key exchange, withstands quantum computing fairly well. Unfortunately, you will get pwned and get your symmetric keys extracted during key exchange. The only work-around that I am aware of is using preshared keys.
They couldn't be sure about which answer to give...they are still thinking about it
NSA + A = NASA
How about Quantum Computer Porn? Do they have anything to say about that?
This doesn't really deal with the real issue, the fact that the vast majority of what D-Wave is doing is complete hype with a very tiny chance of having any practical impacts. It isn't even clear that the type of problems D-Wave's machines can handle are problems where we should expect any substantial speedup from quantum computers. D-Wave's latest attempt at claiming that their computers show noticeable speedup is less lacking than some of their previous claims, but still not at all impressive. See Scott Aaronson's blog post http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2535 where he notes that the D-Wave machine both doesn't give any apparent asymptotic speedup and is beaten by the best classical computers. The real question isn't security but why NASA is wasting money on this instead of more promising quantum computing research.
the agency of the same name, sans the first 'a', says so.
Why is NASA doing quantum computing at all? What does it have to do with airplane research, rockets, or humans in space?
Engineers from NASA and Google are using it to research a whole new area of computing — one that's years from commercialization but could revolutionize the way computers solve complex problems, ...
[ Sorry, I guess that's only funny if you've seen the TV show Better Off Ted. ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Ok, I'm assuming that they connect to this thing remotely and just have a monitor and keyboard stuck into it directly.
If that's the case, how is it really different to the security of any other system?
Lock it in a room, shove it behind the normal network protections.
it is both secure and not secure. and insecure. and somewhere in the middle. and everywhere else. definitely maybe.
So, this question is probably so obvious to anyone reading these comments, I can't even call it a "conspiracy" theory per se...
If you take the typical "model" of technology announcements, and presume that the "real" breakthrough happened 1-3 generations of this technology ago, and apply it here, is it true?
Should we now assume that NSA (oops, I "forgot" the A) has had this technology for several years? I'm not heavily interested in quantum computing, so it may be ignorant, but I can just imagine a few racks of version 2.0 or 3.0 of these things already having made every bit (ha) of encryption on the planet obsolete....
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NASA could be in a quantum state
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It is, and is not, secure at the same time.
But make me pay for it.
If NASA actually has a a real, practical, working quantum computer, they could discuss it any time they want, both earlier and later. And still could have the discussion any time after they first built the damn thing.
Seriously, for NASA to clam up like this is atypical of usual NASA culture. I suspect one or another of our 3-letter agencies have been pressuring them.