DEF CON 33 - Post Quantum Panic: When Will the Cracking Begin, & Can We Detect it? - K Karagiannis
Due to recently published algorithmic improvements (1399 qubits @ 2048 bit key length for Shor’s) and leaps being made in quantum computing hardware (IBM Starling @ 200 logical qubits in 2029, and IBM Blue Jay @ 2000 logical quibits from 2033 and on), encryption is in danger of State-sponsored and high end-criminal attacks as soon as 2030. Particularly susceptible are crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, which rely on the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem (ECDLP) and are attackable by Shor’s factoring capability on a predictably feasible quantum computer.
The fact that he doesn’t talk about the current state and real world process of applying and trying out the algorithms and their improvements of the last 10 years makes me strongly believe this is more propaganda than real.
It’s all projection, and projections of projections.
I’m not going to argue against the accelerated introduction of post quantum algorithms… But this talk smells
This is a great talk, but it’s ignoring the real issue in that it would need to be “in-line”, which is not anywhere near possible. They sort of address that, but are talking about the cyphers themselves mostly.
I think we’ve reached the cusp where we can exchange new derivative keys on the fly per request without making too much of a dent in speed, but that comes with all kinds of tradeoffs on session length and convenience I suppose.
Edit: I guess there is another eventuality where governments just go and farm public keys and use them against targeted traffic. Not a good way to beat that right now.
I’ll take every opportunity I can get to share https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/bollocks.pdf
IonQ’s timeline doesn’t look realistic. Perhaps IBM’s is; idk anything about this space. I see it’s been 6 years since quantum advantage has been demonstrated, but nothing useful has been done yet. Hard to speculate on timelines when the tech is still in its infancy.