NSA Trying To Build Quantum Computer 221
New submitter sumoinsanity writes "The Washington Post has disclosed that the NSA is trying to build a quantum computer for use in cracking modern encryption. Their work is part of a research project into tackling the toughest equipment, which received $79.7 million in total funding. Another article makes the case that the NSA's quantum computing efforts are both disturbing and reassuring. The reassuring part is that public key infrastructure is still OK when done properly, since the NSA is still working so hard to defeat it. It's also highly unlikely that the NSA has achieved significant progress without outside awareness or help. More disturbing is that it may simply be a matter of time before it fails, and our private messages are out there for all to see."
Some background facts (Score:5, Informative)
These are hardly shocking revelations. The document mentions to achieve control over two semiconductor qubits, whereas factoring 2048 bit numbers requires at least that many qubits, and probably several orders of magnitude more. The current record stands at control of 14 qubits, achieved in 2010 in Rainer Blatt's group at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, using trapped ions.
Some time ago, I wrote something on the history and possible future of quantum computing [quantenblog.net]. Moreover, one also has to keep in mind that there are public key cryptosystems [wikipedia.org] that most likely cannot be cracked even with quantum computers.
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Informative)
The elite at the top are actually temporary political positions that come and go with presidents. The worst of the NSA programs have been continuous programs lasting between administrations.
Re:Quantum computers arn't magic (Score:4, Informative)
Symmetric key encryption with sufficiently large keys is perfectly safe from a quantum computer.
But current public-key encryption (e.g. RSA) and key exchange (e.g. DHM) isn't.
Unbreakable symmetric key encryption isn't worth a damn if you have no secure means of exchanging keys.
Re:One word (Score:2, Informative)
Quantum computing would only give you a modest square root speed up on computing the hash functions. You could however break the elliptic curve signature algorithm and sign all the coins to yourself.
Re: One word (Score:2, Informative)
You wouldn't use this to mine bitcoins (since that involves finding a hash with specific properties), but you might use it to steal them (the secret part of your wallet is a private key).