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Willow, Our Quantum Chip

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Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to distinguish between "physical qubits" and "logical qubits." This paper creates a single "first-of-a-kind" logical qubit with about 100 physical qubits (using Surface Code quantum error correction). A paper from Google in 2019 estimates needing ~20 million physical qubits ("How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers in 8 hours using 20 million noisy qubits" - https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.09749 ), though recent adva…

This is correct. I worked in quantum research a little.

Dear rhubarbtree,

I'm very sorry to admit it but I'm too lazy to read the entire discussion in this thread. Could you please tell me, a mere mortal, at which point the humanity should start worrying about the security of asymmetric encryption in the brave new world of quantum computing?

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are compelling arguments to believe in the many-worlds interpretation. No sign of a Heisenberg cut has been observed so far, even as experiments involving entanglement of larger and larger molecules are performed, which makes objective-collapse theories hard to consider seriously. Bohmian theories are nice, but require awkward adjustments to reconcile them with relativity. But more importantly, they are philoso…

I think the key point that makes the quoted statement sciencey gibberish is that the Many Worlds Interpretation is just that - an interpretation. There is no way to prove or disprove it (except if you proved that the world is not actually quantum mechanical, in which case MWI might not be a valid interpretation of the new theory). Saying "this is more evidence for MWI" is thus true of any quantum mechanical experimen…

I would argue because we can't postulate a means of testing it now does not mean it is thereby impossible to prove; merely currently.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#493
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I swear I can't tell which of these comments are sarcastic/parody and which are actual answers. A sort of quantum commenting conundrum, I guess.

They are both, just until the moment you try to read them

This subthread are among the best comments I've read in this website.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually expect RSA to see a resurgence due to this. Especially because you can technically scale RSA to very high levels potentially pushing the crack date to decades later than any ECC construction. With the potential that such a large quantum computer may never even arrive. There are several choices with scaling RSA too, you can push the primes which slows generation time considerably. Or the more reasonab…

If you don't mind a one terabyte public key. https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/351.pdf

also that paper (IMO) is ridiculously conservative. Just using 1GB keys is plenty sufficient since it would require a quantum computer with a billion bits to decrypt.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#496

They opened the API for it and I'm sending requests but the response always comes back 300ms before I send the request, is there a way of handling that with try{} predestined{} blocks? Or do I need to use the Bootstrap Paradox library?

Update: I tried installing the current Boostrap Paradox library but it says I have to uninstall next years version first.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ECC is easier to implement right. Even the older ones that are full of footguns have orders of magnitude less footguns than RSA. So don't fear them due to unfounded theories.

Is there consensus on what signature validation is correct? https://hdevalence.ca/blog/2020-10-04-its-25519am

IMO, that article has a clear conclusion that you should aim your software at the libsodium-1.0.16 pattern (no edge cases).

The problem it's presenting is more about software on the wild having different behavior... And if "some people connect on the internet and use software that behaves differently from mine" is a showstopper for you, I have some really bad news.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#498
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are compelling arguments to believe in the many-worlds interpretation. No sign of a Heisenberg cut has been observed so far, even as experiments involving entanglement of larger and larger molecules are performed, which makes objective-collapse theories hard to consider seriously. Bohmian theories are nice, but require awkward adjustments to reconcile them with relativity. But more importantly, they are philoso…

"Many-world interpretation" is just a religion, it has nothing to do with physics. Pilot Wave is an example of a physical theory, Copenhagen is an administrative agreement.

I'm pretty sure pilot wave is the same kind of unfalsifiable interpretation of the experimental results that MWI is. Also I think people are making too big a deal out of the comment in the article. I took it as kind of tongue-in-cheek. An expert would know MWI is unfalsifiable and inconsequential.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#499
post #205

I’m a quantum dabbler so I’ll throw out an armchair reaction: this is a significant announcement. My memory is that 256 bit keys in non quantum resistant algos need something like 2500 qubits or so; and by that I mean generally useful programmable qubits. To show a bit over 100 qubits with stability, meaning the information survives a while, long enough to be read, and general enough to run some benchmarks on is some…

> Worth spending a little time doing some long tail strategizing I’d say. Yup, like Bitcoin going to zero.

Bitcoin will just fork to a quantum proof encryption scheme and there will be something called "bitcoin classic" that is the old protocol (which few would care about)

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind a one terabyte public key. https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/351.pdf

also that paper (IMO) is ridiculously conservative. Just using 1GB keys is plenty sufficient since it would require a quantum computer with a billion bits to decrypt.

Although I know it’s an apocryphal quote, I am reminded of “640K should be enough for anybody.”

The Intel 4004, in 1971, had only 2,250 transistors.

A handful of qubits today might become a billion sooner than you think.

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