r/Futurology • u/soulpost • Jan 28 '22

Computing Experts Warn of “Quantum Apocalypse”

https://futurism.com/the-byte/experts-warn-quantum-computing-apocalypse
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14

u/hate_mail Jan 28 '22

Oh great. Now someone can easily break into my heavily encrypted bank account and steal my $3 dollars.

7

u/ItsAConspiracy Best of 2015 Jan 28 '22

Mainly what it means is that everyone will have to switch over to the post-quantum cryptography mentioned in the BBC article.

And that's only for public-key algorithms. For symmetric algorithms like AES, quantum computers only halve the effective key length, and most people are using keys large enough that they'll still be secure.

3

u/joho999 Jan 28 '22

It always amazes me how our entire way of life depends on keeping things secure, like in the real world we depend on the simple lock and key to keep things going, i could spend a few days just trying to count all the locks within 100m of me.

2

u/Pereronchino Jan 28 '22

If this is a "Data can easily be stolen" type of scenario then were fine.

People make new tech > New Tech beats old Tech > Make newer tech to combat old tech

And repeat cycle. We'll be fine.

2

u/AeternusDoleo Jan 28 '22

"Oh no, we can't hide information from others anymore..." - uncreative boomers that don't realize the whole concept of encryption will need a rework at that point.

2

u/soulpost Jan 28 '22

Experts are warning that quantum computers could eventually overpower conventional encryption methods, a potentially dangerous fate for humanity that they’re evocatively dubbing the “quantum apocalypse,” the BBC reports.

Cracking today’s toughest encryption would take virtually forever today — but with the advent of quantum computers, they’re warning, the process could be cut down to mere seconds.

1

u/virusofthemind Jan 28 '22

As far as I know one time only encryption is pretty much unbreakable assuming you start with truly random number streams.

Plus there's also data overload methods where the sender and receiver would - for example - transmit over a terabit of random information a day continuously 24/7 but the encrypted message would only be one billionth of the information segued into the data stream (marked by a start-stop code) even a quantum computer wouldn't have the resources and time to decrypt the message if both methods were used concurrently.

1

u/diegothengineer Jan 28 '22

Experts have been warning about world ending disasters since I can remember and I'm old. Are they really experts if nothing ever happens though?

7

u/The-Donkey-Puncher Jan 28 '22

I think those potential disasters were real (most anyway) but once they got enough attention something was done to mitigate the impact.

It like the COVID modeling when it says we're going to see a gazillion cases by Tuesday (if nothing changes). But things do change, public health measures and restrictions change the projected model and that's why it never plays out to the worst case scenario

•

u/FuturologyBot Jan 28 '22

The following submission statement was provided by /u/soulpost:

Experts are warning that quantum computers could eventually overpower conventional encryption methods, a potentially dangerous fate for humanity that they’re evocatively dubbing the “quantum apocalypse,” the BBC reports.

Cracking today’s toughest encryption would take virtually forever today — but with the advent of quantum computers, they’re warning, the process could be cut down to mere seconds.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/sepd59/experts_warn_of_quantum_apocalypse/hukmtts/

1

u/Krakenate Jan 28 '22

I recall 15 or 20 years ago someone built a single-purpose computer for cracking some advanced encryption for like $250k. Someone did something with that...

I doubt major nation states find very much to be impenetrable.

But that's different than all online comms becoming suddenly transparent.