Slashdot Mirror
Quantum Computers Pose a Security Threat That We're Still Totally Unprepared For (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The world relies on encryption to protect everything from credit card transactions to databases holding health records and other sensitive information. A new report from the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says we need to speed up preparations for the time when super-powerful quantum computers can crack conventional cryptographic defenses. The experts who produced the report, which was released today, say widespread adoption of quantum-resistant cryptography "will be a long and difficult process" that "probably cannot be completed in less than 20 years." It's possible that highly capable quantum machines will appear before then, and if hackers get their hands on them, the result could be a security and privacy nightmare.
Today's cyberdefenses rely heavily on the fact that it would take even the most powerful classical supercomputers almost unimaginable amounts of time to unravel the cryptographic algorithms that protect our data, computer networks, and other digital systems. But computers that harness quantum bits, or qubits, promise to deliver exponential leaps in processing power that could break today's best encryption. The report cites an example of encryption that protects the process of swapping identical digital keys between two parties, who use them to decrypt secure messages sent to one another. A powerful quantum computer could crack RSA-1024, a popular algorithmic defense for this process, in less than a day. The U.S., Israel and others are working to develop standards for quantum-proof cryptographic algorithms, but they may not be ready or widely adopted by the time quantum computers arrive.
"[I]t will take at least a couple of decades to get quantum-safe cryptography broadly in place," the report says in closing. "If that holds, we're going have to hope it somehow takes even longer before a powerful quantum computer ends up in a malicious hacker's hands."
Today's cyberdefenses rely heavily on the fact that it would take even the most powerful classical supercomputers almost unimaginable amounts of time to unravel the cryptographic algorithms that protect our data, computer networks, and other digital systems. But computers that harness quantum bits, or qubits, promise to deliver exponential leaps in processing power that could break today's best encryption. The report cites an example of encryption that protects the process of swapping identical digital keys between two parties, who use them to decrypt secure messages sent to one another. A powerful quantum computer could crack RSA-1024, a popular algorithmic defense for this process, in less than a day. The U.S., Israel and others are working to develop standards for quantum-proof cryptographic algorithms, but they may not be ready or widely adopted by the time quantum computers arrive.
"[I]t will take at least a couple of decades to get quantum-safe cryptography broadly in place," the report says in closing. "If that holds, we're going have to hope it somehow takes even longer before a powerful quantum computer ends up in a malicious hacker's hands."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You mean like every hostile or competing nation state?
"it will take at least a couple of decades to get quantum-safe cryptography broadly in place", I hope this will happen soon
... scary AI.
I swim in the quantum theory waters and it's goddam near impossible to rake the jiggle out of one qubit. The temperature has to be at near-absolute zero and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle plus all of the laws of thermodynamics and the properties of quantum vacuum are working against us.
As the qubit count increases, the randomness multiplies at an exponential rate. It's a nice dream, as is the theory of AI killing us all, but the hurdles are too great.
In the spirit of, "never say never," a practical quantum computer is at least 100 years away.
And here's the 411 on the encryption fear, anyway: A quantum computer that could instantly break today's encryption could just as quickly create encryption that is impossible to break.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Once the Bits are tampered with (observed) they change.
[($)]
Just a way for otherwise useless academics to extract tax payer dollars from militaristic states.
A few days ago one of the slashdot articles explained why quantum computers of a significant size will never be possible.
Which is right?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I thought elliptical curve cryptography was good enough?
Also, it occurs to me they're concerned about a "20 year" timespan to get it widely deployed. Maybe a truly excellent algorithm just got patented, and they have to wait until it's unencumbered for it to spread?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
The world relies on encryption to protect everything from credit card transactions to databases yet they keep getting hacked repeatedly so what's the point?
The point is to keep making it harder for the bad guys to succeed. It's an arms race.
Of course, the good guys can turn into the bad guys, so be vigilant.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Getting hacked has usually nothing to do with encryption but with stupidity.
E.g. if I call you and ask for your credit card number, would you encrypt it somehow over the phone call?
Would you give it to me?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Most sites that actually care use either 4096-bit RSA or have switched to EC at a comparable bit-strength.
What about the sites that don't care, but should?
No.. no.. I believe there are a couple of quantum computers out there.. They're only going to get better/smaller.. Things don't tend to get larger/worse...
The NSA and GCHQ have the math that finds the users computer. From then its just waiting for the user to enter their pw as gov/mil pushed software collects everything.
No easy connected network? Then MI6/CIA start to look at the workers on site.
The magic was a PRISM like front door into the OS, telcos.
The mathematical flaw was people had to trusted their OS crypto junk/used a telco network.
Quantum will be a cover story for more PRISM, more police ready crypto designed into products.
Quantum will hide all new questions as "national security".
Was it an informant? A lawyer talking to the police?
The telco? The OS? The anti virus software? Malware used by a gov?
Quantum covers for all as the amazing new super computer cover story.
The quantum decrypted everything in real time. No need to look for informants, OS granted police backdoors.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It's called the OTP (one time pad). It's immune to quantum based attacks and, if your adversary is online only, you can distribute them physically..
Don't forget hydrogen fuel cells! Remember those?
You should not ridicule hydrogen fuel cells. They turned out to not be the best solution, but when facing a critical need the best approach is a Flooding Algorithm, where you research every plausible solution. It is important to not only identify what works, but also what doesn't work. The cost of the research failures is negligible compared to the benefit of finding the best alternative transportation technology.
and? the encryption hasn't been hacked yet. just because many companies are incompetent doesn't make encryption broken. Just like if a house collapses it isn't the hammers fault.
There are no QCs of sufficient size to even break amateur-crypto. Scaling is proving difficult enough that it is unclear whether it works at all. There is no threat here. No, really not.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I agree. The whole thing is both useful idiots and "scientists" without ethics that want to profit from the hype a bit longer.
The best supporting evidence for your citation is that QCs have almost not scaled at all in now something like 40 years of research.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Indeed. Some people just cannot let go of a bad idea, possibly because they have no other skills...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
More likely the NSA has buried a lot of backdoors in ECC curves and is now running scared they could leak...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I'm guessing you aren't married.
There's a lot of cryptocurrency mining hardware being dumped & can be repurposed to solve Wikileaks Insurance Files encryptons. Pursuing this direction & not knowing when solves will happen will motivate govs & banks to correct themselves. And that is a Good Thing to do.
who cares, encryption will be broken by the time viable quantum computers are a reality anyway.
australia is just the first domino to fall, soon other nations will follow and all encryption must be breakable by law.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Yeah the NSA defines the mathematics behind elliptic curves, changing reality as they go.
I agree
Yes but you are an idiot.
. The whole thing is both useful idiots and "scientists" without ethics that want to profit from the hype a bit longer.
If one want to profit and have no ethics there are easier ways. But again you are an idiot.
The best supporting evidence for your citation is that QCs have almost not scaled at all in now something like 40 years of research.
Going from proof of concept systems to something that can be used to solve small problems.
Longer coherency times, more qubits and actually demonstrating that it works as predicted. No, nothing happening.
Starting to look how to program a realistic future quantum computer - nothing.
It's a hard problem to crack. But those that attempt to do it aren't idiots and know their stuff.
Can you explain how a quantum computer could work? How would one program the quantum computer if it existed? How would one inspect code for errors? How would one know truth of quantum computer output?
Ask your cat.
Schrodinger, is that you? If you'd put down the box, I have a question....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Same thing at times. Or didn't you know that? The arms race is real on this front.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You seem to be completely unaware how a large part of the scientific establishment and the funding it gets works. The idiot here is you.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There is no need to change reality. ECC is very easy to backdoor, by the very mathematics it uses. Have you done even minimal research?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Uhh... going pretty strong. Prices have been gradually coming down and there is a lot of interest from industry. However, since batteries have also improved in the meantime, the focus is moving away from consumer applications (cars) to larger ones (ships, buses, trucks, trains, even regional planes), so they are not so visible to the man in the street.
I do work in hydrogen & fuel cells, and in the last 2-3 years we have seen a surge in industrial interest we can barely handle. We know that FC manufacturers are tooling for mass production, at which point prices will fall a lot faster. At this point we are where batteries were about 15 years ago, with some applications ready for deployment (buses, home CHP, trucks, trains) and plenty of others in advanced development—maritime is likely the next big thing.
So just because you don't hear about it in the 9 o'clock news it does not mean it has been abandoned. It has simply dipped down from the hype peak and started maturing.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Research on quantum computing is now over 35 years old, and it has been systematically hyped all along, while having very little to show for itself. Existing quantum computers have yet to solve anything that can't be solved by traditional computers far more cheaply, an at least as efficiently, for all practical purposes. The horizon for quantum computers capable of tackling non-trivial problems was ten years away ten years ago, and it still remains ten years away today. Finally, it is not even clear yet that the engineering associated with keeping qubits appropriately entangled for solving problems of interest can be developed, just we don't know whether the engineering associated with warp drives is attainable. True, practical quantum computers may be developed within the next ten years - but the may also never be developed - we don't know yet. At this point, I'd bet that we'll get practical controlled nuclear fusion before we get practical quantum computing - i.e. quantum computing that solves serious, non-Mickey Mouse problems.
widespread adoption of quantum-resistant cryptography "will be a long and difficult process"
What other computer technology took 20 years to get widespread adoption? The last one I could think of was either the Internet itself or the WWW.
Why would cryptography take so long?
Or are we talking about getting quantum-resistant cryptography in our InternetOfThings devices? I'm screwed if someone's using that much resources to hack my car. It would probably be cheaper to hire a league of assassins to take me out.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
of course RSA-1024 has been considered too weak to use for a number of years now.
From an academic point of view. However, nobody has been able to break anything beyond RSA-768, at least not publicly. And chances are that nobody has been able to break anything beyond that, period: the time, effort and money involved to break such keys are not worth the while, for such keys do not protect information that is all that valuable. Most likely, it is far easier and cheaper just to steal the keys, if necessary.
Since cryptography depends on very large primes,
Only a small subset thereof does.
couldn't quantum computers actually be used to find very large primes that conventional computers would take years to find?
Classical computers can already find the primes of interest in cryptography very quickly and efficiently.
Don't forget hydrogen fuel cells! Remember those? They even had a hydrogen bus in Chicago back in the 2000s. I wonder what happened to it?
What happened to it is that you can now lease hydrogen vehicles in California and GM and Honda have a joint fuel cell plant and predict that it will actually be profitable to sell FCEVs in the next generation. GM in particular is betting on Hydrogen to be the future fuel of the military. If you actually cared about this stuff, though, you'd know all of this.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
TOO MANY SECRETS. Quantum computing will be code-breaking box off Sneakers.
And fusion! Or thorium? Or any number of free energy devices that the inventors just need a LITTLE more capital to finally get above 1:1.
Hydrogen fuel cells themselves I agree do not deserve ridicule, but the hype that they were going to take over and replace everything can be mocked.
SSL = corporations hand-jobbing each other ("signing") and claiming they are "trusted". By who? Each other? Gimme a break. Too many times people trust encryption only to be let down by it either being a shitty implementation that gets hacked or the algo itself gets broken (or more likely becomes "questionable" and in some grey area due to some asshole's "paper" on some esoteric part of the algo). Do I see the need for it in theory? Yes. I do understand why authorization and authentication processes as well as data transport is best secured. I'm just saying that on the flipside of these needs, it's also worth looking at the fact that the old saying about 'putting your eggs in one basket' looks pretty apt for crypto. It's a great place to put all your shit and then find out it's nowhere near as secure as writing it in cleartext on a 3x5 notecard in your desk. People need to keep in mind that no single security measure keeps you protected. That's why we have defense in depth strategies that view crypto as one small part (a part I believe should get even smaller). Crypto also seems to work a lot better for corrupt governments and rich assholes, but nobody likes pointing that out and instead resort to fantasies about Greenpeace and Amnesty International NGO's using PGP to send secret messages to the free world. In reality, it's the corporations and giant global fuckers that get the most mileage out of it (think SSL and other corporate design-by-committee crypto garbage). I'd sooner trust sensitive data to a typewriter and a steel safe than a crypto algorithm and someone's lame implementation. Experience shows that shit has a rough track record.
Good until you open the box.
I await the Quantum EULA
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
NSA also crippled the maths for generating unpredictable curves. Well, NIST did that, in collusion with the NSA request, resulting in FIPS 186-3.
https://crypto.stackexchange.c...
You hint at this in your last statement. We can NEVER trust spooks. They are not here to help. Ever. Period.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
As for Quantum Computing? Pfffft.
Pull the other one. QC is the Cold Fusion of computing technology.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
the hype that they were going to take over and replace everything can be mocked.
I must have missed the hype. I remember GWB advocating hydrogen fuel cells, but nobody believed he was serious, and he was widely ridiculed at the time. I don't remember anyone else hyping it.
I think the supposition that the fossil fuel industry would abandon $Trillions of infrastructure and proven petrol reserves was the greatest failing of the hydrogen revolution.
That is not why hydrogen fuel cells failed. They failed partly because the fuel cells are expensive (requiring platinum coatings), need regular maintenance to keep the membranes clean, and have very limited range because of the difficulty of storing H2.
But the main reason they failed was because of dramatic advances in the cost and storage capacity of lithium batteries.
Prove it. You are the one making the assertion
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Doubt it. Lockheed has a data center full of quantum computers. They are trying to use them to figure out thier spaghetti code for the F-35.
Is this /. or some news outlet for old fogies who don't understand computers? Isn't it already a standard security practice to only allow a few tries at a password before requiring a few minutes wait time til anyone can try again? No matter how fast an attacking computer is, its speed won't be an advantage if it can only attempt 3 tries every 15 or 20 minutes.
O rly?
And what about all of their off-site backups? Have they re-encrypted them, or is it is a matter of janking some tapes from Iron Mountain, or company's on-site storage, and applying quantum decryption to them?
Quantum computing is relevant to public key, asymmetrical ciphers used in establishing online communications. Static data such as backups is encrypted using symmetrical ciphers such as AES and Twofish which are not susceptible to quantum computers.
I do not need to prove things already proven elsewhere. Look it up you lazy slob.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
So you have nothing. You aren't fooling anyone in this neck of the woods. Take your propaganda elsewhere
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson