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Will you heed my warnings now?

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#31

Post by red75prime »

toxik wrote: post #23
sanxiyn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will let Scott Aaronson speak. (See https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9668 ) > Sometimes these days, I'll survey the spectacular recent progress in fault-tolerance, 2-qubit gate fidelities, programmable hundred-qubit systems, etc., only to be answered with a sneer: "What's the biggest number that Shor's algorithm has factored? Still 15 after all these years? Haha, apparently the emperor has no clothes!" I've commented…

I talked to a guy who did his doctoral degree on quantum computing and he was not worried at all. In fact he thought it was wildly overhyped, and like cold fusion, self driving cars, or string theory, always just around the corner. Just give us five more years and another grant, please.

Meanwhile Waymo has 200 million autonomous miles under its belt.

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#32

Post by beloch »

KaiserPro wrote: post #2

Ok, maybe I'm missing something here. So we know that quantum computers hold a real risk of being able to break a lot of encryption. We also know that changing cyphers is hard (because reasons) But what I don't see is what I can practically do now, as either someone who is a CTO/Big Cheese™ or a lowly engineer?

The most important thing to realize about cryptography is that, for most methods short of a Vernam cipher or quantum key distribution, coded messages need to be treated as published with delay. Cipher text can be archived today and attacked years from now with currently undeveloped, unknown, or unpredicted resources/algorithms. Sure, perhaps nobody archived the cipher text and you're fine. You don't know that for sure. Your methods may be very strong but, if they're not provably immune to attack, you also don't know what the delay before publication truly is. It might be a very long time. It might not.

If you're transmitting credit card info that changes every few years and can be changed on demand, that's no big deal. If you're transmitting information that will remain sensitive for decades, the time to look for methods that would stand up to quantum computing was years ago. However, today is still better than years in the future. At the very least, you can choose what to send in encrypted form over public networks and what not to send.

There are people who will scoff at the notion of quantum computing ever developing to the point where it can make an impact. There are people who scoff at the effort and expense of QKD or good ol' spooks carrying briefcases full of one-time PADs. You might be right to listen to them. You might not be. It's a risk. Whether you, or your organization, can tolerate that risk is entirely dependent on you and yours.

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#33

Post by alephnerd »

sehansen wrote: post #21

As a software engineer with a good amount of freedom to choose what tools I want to use, what can I do presently to move towards post-quantum cryptography? AFAIK the hashes and symmetric cyphers that are in wide use are already resistant, leaving mainly public-key cryptography as the problem. Is there, for instance, a drop in replacement for `ssh-keygen -t ed25519`?

It's still being implemented or defined.

The worry about "harvest and decrypt" in a 5 year timeframe is primarily from a nation state/natsec perspective.

If you are being targeted by a nation state as a line level engineer, harvest and decrypt is the least of your worries.

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#34

Post by red75prime »

emil-lp wrote: post #15
sharkjacobs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying this because it's an evergreen joke or because you really think there hasn't been meaningful progress in the field since 1996? Duke Nukem Forever was release fifteen years ago. Some things never happen until they suddenly do. The wolf really does eat the boy at the end of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

But Duke Nukem was developed with visible progress. We are still not factoring 21, let alone 35, let alone numbers with thousands of digits.

Quantum correction algorithms (that would allow factoring of thousands of digits) begin to work when the gate fidelity and other parameters are above certain threshold.

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#35

Post by BoppreH »

sehansen wrote: post #21

As a software engineer with a good amount of freedom to choose what tools I want to use, what can I do presently to move towards post-quantum cryptography? AFAIK the hashes and symmetric cyphers that are in wide use are already resistant, leaving mainly public-key cryptography as the problem. Is there, for instance, a drop in replacement for `ssh-keygen -t ed25519`?

I have another comment[1] on this post with more practical instructions, but the `ssh-keygen` is a good question. The cryptography community is still focused on migrating encryption/key exchange algorithms, for fear of data being captured today and decrypted in the future. So OpenSSH 10.0+ already enables ML-KEM by default.

SSH keys, on the other hand, are authentication and would require an online Quantum Computer to break, so we have more time. Authentication is also (usually) more complicated, so there are still disagreements on what to do with the Web PKI for example. To give you a concrete target, Google, Microsoft, and CloudFlare have self-imposed deadlines of 2029 for their PQC migrations.

In practice, PQC migration means updating your software, bugging your vendors to ensure they have this on their roadmaps, and making sure your own code is flexible in respect to algorithms used.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47959556

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#36

Post by YouWhy »

Re the "Manhattan project in 1944" argument - I am very cautious about the "modulo engineering scaling" carve-out -- unlike the uranium manufacturing pipeline of World War 2, that involved massively scaling up a known process, on the face of it there's no uncontroversial process/architecture to scale up in this case.

On the face of it, even relatively "point-target" goals of this kind could take many decades if at all; GaN for blue diodes come in mind as an example of a field that was stuck for a generation -- until it wasn't.

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#37

Post by alephnerd »

BoppreH wrote: post #35
sehansen wrote: post #21

As a software engineer with a good amount of freedom to choose what tools I want to use, what can I do presently to move towards post-quantum cryptography? AFAIK the hashes and symmetric cyphers that are in wide use are already resistant, leaving mainly public-key cryptography as the problem. Is there, for instance, a drop in replacement for `ssh-keygen -t ed25519`?

I have another comment[1] on this post with more practical instructions, but the `ssh-keygen` is a good question. The cryptography community is still focused on migrating encryption/key exchange algorithms, for fear of data being captured today and decrypted in the future. So OpenSSH 10.0+ already enables ML-KEM by default. SSH keys, on the other hand, are authentication and would require an online Quantum Computer t…

Cloudflare should have finished it's PQC migration already.

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#38

Post by BoppreH »

alephnerd wrote: post #37
BoppreH wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have another comment[1] on this post with more practical instructions, but the `ssh-keygen` is a good question. The cryptography community is still focused on migrating encryption/key exchange algorithms, for fear of data being captured today and decrypted in the future. So OpenSSH 10.0+ already enables ML-KEM by default. SSH keys, on the other hand, are authentication and would require an online Quantum Computer t…

Cloudflare should have finished it's PQC migration already.

That's true for their CDN (https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-quantum-for-all/), but there's a lot more to do, with a 2029 target (https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-quantum-roadmap/).

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#39

Post by endymion-light »

Razengan wrote: post #30
endymion-light wrote: post #28

I'm sure eventually i'll eat my words - but Quantum still seems like a massive marketing gimmick. The technology itself is incredibly interesting, but it feels as if CERN began advertising itself as a marketing stunt - there's just something about the way I see quantum marketed + advertised right now that doesn't seem to align with reality.

> * it feels as if CERN began advertising itself as a marketing stunt* Quantum AI harvesting antimatter

I suppose in spirit of the article - it's as if the manhattan project in 1944 was telling the world that theoretically it's 6-12 months away from igniting the entire upper atmosphere.

Re: Will you heed my warnings now?

#40

Post by alephnerd »

BoppreH wrote: post #38
alephnerd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare should have finished it's PQC migration already.

That's true for their CDN ( https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-quantum-for-all/ ), but there's a lot more to do, with a 2029 target ( https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-quantum-roadmap/ ).

Ah yep. Good callout.

On a separate note, I've definetly been hearing worried murmurs about "harvest and decrypt" attacks along with post-quantum TEE slightly before the GCP paper, and I definetly think it appears a couple nation states are on track for a "quantum leap" by 2030 given the rate at which I've been hearing it within my network.

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