For those who know how all this works or how it should work.
If it is true that a type of quantum computer might be able factor large number and if it is true that it would allow the users to read lots of encrypted data then quantum computing would be at the very top of the list of every intelligence agency out there in every country.
I am thinking high multi billion labs yr/labs.
It would be a direct threat / issue / opportunity to national security.
I am burying myself in assumptions I cannot begin to justify.)
If that is the case, is what we are seeing here from IBM, or Google, state of the art?
What are the chances that some (secret) government lab somewhere ( not necessarily in the US) has a much more advanced model already working?
Is there any chance that a working crypto breaker could be operational?
Of course, if there was such a thing, out there, it would be in the greatest interest of whatever fraction had it to ensure nobody knew about it. Since it would give an enormous advantage to posses and use it, it would be critical to not let anyone know.
I came across some declassified docs covering NSA a long long time ago,
from what I learned it seemed like they had access to technology that was not commercially available at the time.
(Sorry,. I like to write fictional stories on my spare time.
I may have dipped into that territory too much in this post.)
Intelligence agencies are doing this the other way around. They're recording existing encrypted traffic to decrypt later should a useful quantum computer come into existence.
Cryptographers are working on post-quantum cryptography. This is expected to work in practice but they have to make it efficient and it's going to go through a couple of generations of new attack methods being discovered and then thwarted. At this point the level of deployment is basically zero.
Notably, pre-shared key systems (i.e. systems that use symmetric cryptography) are not as vulnerable to quantum computers, if you need something that works right now.
I'm quite confident by the press release alone that these systems are still almost entirely useless for breaking crypto BECAUSE of the fact we're hearing about them. If IBM had a chip that could fundamentally break crypto, the US government would almost assuredly immediately embargo any mention of it. Sure a lot of the science behind it would likely be in public journals, but as we approach a point in which it could actually break * crypto, it would become a state secret.
I have no doubt the leaders of IBM are well aware of that fact (as well as google, d-wave, the University of Science and Technology of China, etc).
If it is true that a type of quantum computer might be able factor large number and if it is true that it would allow the users to read lots of encrypted data then quantum computing would be at the very top of the list of every intelligence agency out there in every country. I am thinking high multi billion labs yr/labs.
It would be a direct threat / issue / opportunity to national security.
I am burying myself in assumptions I cannot begin to justify.)
If that is the case, is what we are seeing here from IBM, or Google, state of the art?
What are the chances that some (secret) government lab somewhere ( not necessarily in the US) has a much more advanced model already working?
Is there any chance that a working crypto breaker could be operational?
Of course, if there was such a thing, out there, it would be in the greatest interest of whatever fraction had it to ensure nobody knew about it. Since it would give an enormous advantage to posses and use it, it would be critical to not let anyone know.
I came across some declassified docs covering NSA a long long time ago, from what I learned it seemed like they had access to technology that was not commercially available at the time.
(Sorry,. I like to write fictional stories on my spare time. I may have dipped into that territory too much in this post.)