Quantum computers need vastly fewer resources than thought to break vital encryption
No, the sky isn't falling, but Q Day is coming, and it won't be as expensive as thought.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/03/new-quantum-computing-advances-heighten-threat-to-elliptic-curve-cryptosystems/Open linkView original on lemmy.zip
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Crypto currency is so intertwined with the global economy and major banks that proof of a hacked bitcoin address would destroy the world's markets overnight
Don’t worry it’s not as close as the popsci blogs would like you to believe.
Doesn’t quantum proof encryption exist already? I thought I learned that in college more than a decade ago… The only reason its not viable yet is because hardware was not powerful enough to run it without being slow.
I could be misremembering though its been a long time
It does and many security or privacy oriented services have already implemented post quantum encryption, but majority of the internet still relies on AES-256 or similar if not worse.
AES-256 is fine actually. The best known quantum attack reduces key strength from 256 bits to 254.4 bits. The problem is that in order to use AES (which is a symmetric encryption scheme) you need to exchange keys using an asymmetric system like RSA, which is known to be weak to quantum attacks.
There is quantum cryptography also. If any middle man listens into the communication, the information is scrabbled. Cool stuff
Why the focus on breaking encryption. Can these computers not be used for better things
In a perfect world, yes. But instead, we have countries like Russia (and probably now the US) which would love to use this technology for nefarious purposes.
Not just the us now, the us at any point in history since encryption would've used quantum to break it
"Now the us"? Were you born in 2015 lol
I learned that QC can be used for general search problems, so it could get used for more efficient web browsing, etc. But those are relatively more difficult tasks, I guess.
It's kind of ironic that quantum computers seem to exist and not exist at the same time.
more hype and no practical results