quantum computing

[AutodidacticJoe]

http://www.naturalnews.com/036878_quantum_computing_decryption_algorithms_government_secrets.html

so i really dont understand this enough so... are we fuked? are my bitcoins screwed? should i give in the uh new world order yadada? Is this just another annoying mike adams article? Quantum encryption and its back to square one?

[Syock]

Current encryption methods are not safe from the government anyway.  It is just more annoying for them to deal with it.  Computer security has always been an arms race. 

[Agrarian_Agorist]

Everything in the article about the potential of a quantum computer is correct.  However, the author seems to think that a true quantum computer is only a few years away.  This might be true, but it is highly doubtful.  UC Santa Barbra could only factor a small number due to the limited size of their quantum computer; the problem lies in scaling it to the size which would be required to do what the government wants to do with it.  The costs go through-the-roof as they try to make it bigger; plus, the likelihood that it will actually work decreases dramatically as they expand the scale of the processor.


The government has been working on this for a very long time, and they have only gotten this far.  The government will most likely try to use the economic depression to corral the best scientists to work on this project; thereby decreasing the time for them to have a fully functioning model.

But, to answer your question; yes.  If the government gets a working model of the quantum computer, then we're all fucked. 

The quantum computer would enable them to predict the future; it will actually be able to predict all possible futures and then by a process of elimination due to historical context, it would be able to isolate the most probable futures for our version of reality.  As people conform ever so greatly to the will of the government the future becomes more predictable.  The government already has a rudimentary version of a social algorithm which they will be using in their Data Eye in the Sky satellite, which is to try and predict what people are going to do, by using all known electronic communications.  The quantum computer will make this simple; especially if the social algorithm is modified by way of a genetic or evolutionary algorithm.  If they marry all of this technology in with the autonomous jet fighter which Boeing and MIT are working on, then the World Government will have a machine which will kill people who are going to be a threat -to the government- in the future.

Data Eye in the Sky:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/science/11predict.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/us-intelligence-wants-to-predict-human-behavior-with-data-eye-in-the-sky/

Autonomous Jet Fighter:
http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/u-s-navy-successfully-flies-first-autonomous-robotic-jet-20110210/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37158137/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/new-robotic-stealth-fighter-jet-set-soar/#.UDOM58-YObk
http://www.phantomreport.com/pilotless-autonomous-fighter-jet-project-begins-test-flights-over-irish-sea

[Seth King]

Current encryption methods are not safe from the government anyway.  It is just more annoying for them to deal with it.  Computer security has always been an arms race. 

I think you're wrong about that.

There have been no known instances of modern encryption being cracked. And even if it were, we could easily just double the bits of the keys, which, in effect, makes the encryption an order of magnitude stronger.

[Euler]

Current encryption methods are not safe from the government anyway.  It is just more annoying for them to deal with it.  Computer security has always been an arms race. 

I think you're wrong about that.

There have been no known instances of modern encryption being cracked. And even if it were, we could easily just double the bits of the keys, which, in effect, makes the encryption an order of magnitude stronger.

Seth is correct. Unless they're secretly developed a prime factoring algorithm that operates in polynomial time (highly dubious) then this just hasn't occurred.

[Euler]

The quantum computer would enable them to predict the future; it will actually be able to predict all possible futures and then by a process of elimination due to historical context, it would be able to isolate the most probable futures for our version of reality.  As people conform ever so greatly to the will of the government the future becomes more predictable.  The government already has a rudimentary version of a social algorithm which they will be using in their Data Eye in the Sky satellite, which is to try and predict what people are going to do, by using all known electronic communications.  The quantum computer will make this simple; especially if the social algorithm is modified by way of a genetic or evolutionary algorithm.  If they marry all of this technology in with the autonomous jet fighter which Boeing and MIT are working on, then the World Government will have a machine which will kill people who are going to be a threat -to the government- in the future.

Wait what? No that's not the case. You seem to be merging an Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics with a computer and forming some sort of mechanized modernization of Asimov's physchohistorians. I mean just think about one statement you used. I would be able to predict all possible futures? So it would possess an infinite amount of computing power you're positing? And we have the infinite source of energy required for this?

[Syock]

Current encryption methods are not safe from the government anyway.  It is just more annoying for them to deal with it.  Computer security has always been an arms race. 

I think you're wrong about that.

There have been no known instances of modern encryption being cracked.

Depends on what form of encryption we are talking about.  WEP and WPA2 encryption are worthless.  Current PGP is fine, old PGP had flaws.  

I wasn't just talking about what we currently have.  I said it has always been an arms race.  That means both encryption and decryption are getting better.  Even if they had to resort to brute force methods, the government does have supercomputers if they really want to do it.  Anything the CIA breaks won't be made public for us to know it was broken either.  

[Euler]

http://www.naturalnews.com/036878_quantum_computing_decryption_algorithms_government_secrets.html

so i really dont understand this enough so... are we fuked? are my bitcoins screwed? should i give in the uh new world order yadada? Is this just another annoying mike adams article? Quantum encryption and its back to square one?

I don't really want to read the article because its on Natural News.

A quantum computer would be troublesome for our most commonly used encryption algorithms. Public Key Encryption rules the game. The most common methods rely on the difficulty of solving what's referred to as the discrete log problem or essentially a method of factoring a large semiprime. This works fine for our computers. Unfortunately, in the mid 90s Pete Shor invented an algorithm which a quantum computer could run which would effectively solve this problem rendering these encryption methods useless.

This does not mean that all encryption methods will die out though. They will just have to evolve, as ciphers have done throughout the centuries. There are other methods which can be run through a public key system that a QC cannot break (at the moment - again these things develop and have to change over time). For example, the dihedral hidden subgroup problem (a bit of stuff from my field!) could be exploited.

More importantly though, the proliferation of quantum computers will lead to quantum encryption which will be more secure than anything we currently run. So, government only with a QC - troublesome but it will just require encryption to change. This is not an eschaton scenario. Everyone with a QC - we're better than we are now.

[Euler]

Current encryption methods are not safe from the government anyway.  It is just more annoying for them to deal with it.  Computer security has always been an arms race. 

I think you're wrong about that.

There have been no known instances of modern encryption being cracked.

Depends on what form of encryption we are talking about.  WEP and WPA2 encryption are worthless.  Current PGP is fine, old PGP had flaws.  

I wasn't just talking about what we currently have.  I said it has always been an arms race.  That means both encryption and decryption are getting better.  Even if they had to resort to brute force methods, the government does have supercomputers if they really want to do it.  Anything the CIA breaks won't be made public for us to know it was broken either.  

I'm not talking about brute force methods and tackling encryption mechanism which have known and attackable flaws.

[Syock]

I'm not talking about brute force methods and tackling encryption mechanism which have known and attackable flaws.

I wasn't aware I was responding to your post, or disagreeing with you.

This does not mean that all encryption methods will die out though. They will just have to evolve, as ciphers have done throughout the centuries.

That is all I was saying. 

[Euler]

I'm not talking about brute force methods and tackling encryption mechanism which have known and attackable flaws.

I wasn't aware I was responding to your post, or disagreeing with you.

This does not mean that all encryption methods will die out though. They will just have to evolve, as ciphers have done throughout the centuries.

That is all I was saying. 

The quoting of my post made me think so. Sorries.

[Syock]

The quoting of my post made me think so. Sorries.

I quoted Seth's post.  hehe

[Agrarian_Agorist]

Wait what? No that's not the case. You seem to be merging an Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics with a computer and forming some sort of mechanized modernization of Asimov's physchohistorians. I mean just think about one statement you used. I would be able to predict all possible futures? So it would possess an infinite amount of computing power you're positing? And we have the infinite source of energy required for this?

You seem to be unfamiliar with the quantum computer; because what I've stated about the quantum computer predicting all possible futures is one of the concepts behind it which made the government desire and fund the project even more.

I'm not sure when Asimov conceptualized phychohistorians, but the idea of predicting people's behavior has been around since shortly after Freud published his works.  Freud's psychology lead to propaganda -which is the manipulation of behavior for a specific outcome.  This lead to the idea of trying to predict outcomes based on behavior -also in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  

If you would have read the NYTs article which I provided they you would have read that the NSA is already going to be doing this to some extent with their Data Eye in the Sky; add this to the Utah Data Collection Center and they will have every bit of information they would need to make accurate enough predictions of near future events to allow them to manipulate situations to change the outcomes of events.  Take the social algorithm and run it through an evolutionary algorithm and the output will be a more sophisticated and accurate version of the social algorithm.

As far as the energy required to do such things, well, it actually doesn't require infinite energy to do it.  One bit in our current solid state technology holds one value -either a 0 or a 1; one qubit in the quantum computer will hold 256 vales simultaneously, while requiring the same or less energy than our current systems.  So, as far as creating a cypher that a quantum computer can't crack; well, now that is a fantasy.

[Agrarian_Agorist]

@Euler

As far as the proliferation of quantum computers creating quantum ciphers; I doubt that any government would allow for the proliferation of quantum computers, and it's not like an individual will ever build one in their basement or garage.  So, the only one who might have quantum ciphers would be governments.

[Syock]

@Euler

As far as the proliferation of quantum computers creating quantum ciphers; I doubt that any government would allow for the proliferation of quantum computers, and it's not like an individual will ever build one in their basement or garage.  So, the only one who might have quantum ciphers would be governments.

They use to say that about normal computers.