NSA is Working on an Encryption-Cracking Quantum Computer.
Surprised? Probably not. According to recent documents from Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency is spending $79.7 million on a research program called “Penetrating Hard Targets”. This project involves building a quantum computer that would be able to break most types of encryption. At the moment, the agency is nowhere near completion of the project, so no need to worry yet. However, the NSA is already pretty good at breaking encryption and bribes companies to promote flawed encryption, so with this much power and money, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched that the NSA will....
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Image Source: NSA. A new report has come forth today with some potentially startling news in the world of zeroes and ones. The Washington Post notes that the National Security Agency (NSA) is looking to build a quantum computer capable of cracking today's encryption. That's according to former Booz Allen Hamilton worker Edward Snowden (who was contracted by the NSA), who's found himself all over the news for leaking top secret information relating to the security agency's privacy-shattering projects. Said quantum computer is part of a $79.9 million research program called "Penetrating Hard....
Some computer scientists say quantum computers are moving closer to reality and will cripple bitcoin’s encryption systems and doom bitcoin. Governments are investing aggressively in quantum computers, which are ultra powerful. Quantum computers, first theorized by physicist Richard Feynman in 1982, have promised a new era of computing. The theory has only recently translated into significant real-world advances, with NASA, the CIA and Google working on a quantum computer. Computer scientists now warn the machines will cripple existing encryption methods and destroy bitcoin’s technological....
According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), while quantum computers are incapable of breaking public key encryption algorithms, public and private entities need to prepare for future threats against cryptography that is not quantum resistant. Most of today’s digital communications, including cryptocurrencies, leverage public key encryption and CISA believes when “quantum computers reach higher levels of computing power and speed, they will be capable of breaking the public key cryptography algorithms that are in use today.”
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Worried about security for your bitcoin in the face of quantum computing? According to computer researchers, there’s no reason to be. Some people assume that once quantum computing comes along modern encryption technologies will be outpowered. But experts are starting to posit that hash functions and asymmetric encryption could defend not only against modern computers, but also against quantum attackers from the future. Matthew Amy from Canada’s University of Waterloo proposes just this in a paper by the International Association of Cryptologic Research. Amy, and researchers from Perimeter....
What happens to cryptography once quantum computers are everywhere? Will it still be possible to keep encrypted systems — like the Bitcoin network — secure? This week, Google addressed the question with a blog post titled, “Experimenting with Post-Quantum Cryptography,” which looks at how possible computing speeds in the future could compromise encryption, even today. Quantum computing, long a computer science holy grail, promises to increase processing speeds on data operations exponentially. Rather than coding data into binary bits that must be either “1” or “0,” a quantum computer would....