Biden orders new quantum push to ensure encryption isn't cracked by rivals

US president Joe Biden issued two directives on Wednesday aimed at ensuring the nation – and like-minded friends – remain ahead of other countries in the field of quantum computing. Especially as applied to cryptography. The first directive, an Executive Order, creates a National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee …

[Pascal Monett]

"In 2020, Chinese physicist Pan Jianwei claimed to have left the US in the dust"

Yeah, well Chinese scientists have form in making bold claims that do not pan out when a modicum of proof is requested.

Not saying that he definitely didn't do it, but I am waiting for confirmation that he did.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "In 2020, Chinese physicist Pan Jianwei claimed to have left the US in the dust"

How do you confirm a calculation that would normally take 10,000 years is correct without running it for 10,000 years? Maybe build Deep Thought but then we would have to be sure to get the question right.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: "In 2020, Chinese physicist Pan Jianwei claimed to have left the US in the dust"

Some calculations are very asymmetric so you can go one way very easily, inverting it very hard.

For example public key cryptography should be sub-millisecond for those with the keys, and aeons for those without. So if your aeon -> proper tea brewing time improvement is working, just try a few known keys as if you did not know them.

[sreynolds]

Re: "In 2020, Chinese physicist Pan Jianwei claimed to have left the US in the dust"

And in 1989 the poms had achieved fusion - at room temperature.

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss the old lock challenges of the 19th century

They'd certainly sort out some of the claims being made here ...

[NoneSuch]

The Titanic can never sink.

Quantum encryption is unbreakable.

Microsoft Azure can never go down.

The inability of humanity to accept their own shortcomings in design has killed hundreds of thousands over time.

[druck]

Quantum; the new star wars

Throw lots of money at it, even though you know it will never work, and hope it fools the other side into bankrupting themselves trying to keep up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what?

Erm, perhaps he should first have a word with his own politicians and FBI who want to compromise encryption of their own citizens and businesses.

[Anonymous Coward]

"drive innovations across the American economy,

from energy to medicine, through advancements in computation, networking and sensing."

But mainly weapons...

[Sp1z]

Longer Key?

So in the interim, if we think they’ve actually got this “200 second” system, why don’t we use a 1Mbit key instead of a 4096bit one?

By my “back of vape-pen” calculations that’ll push 200 seconds to 11.5 days if it WASN’T exponential, which i’m fairly certain it is (I do not profess to be a cryptographer).

Yeah it’ll take longer to encrypt/decrypt but nothing compared to the time taken to crack it?

Just a thought.