Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
newscientist.com
Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#2Hmmm.... I wonder if someone has finally cracked RSA or its friends.
I also remember a conspiracy theory that Bitcoin was actually made as a litmus test to know if\when someone somewhere achieves quantum supremacy (because then they would be able to crack the block....or something like that
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#3Whats mysterious? When I led a team working on some government funded encryption stuff a few years ago, everyone in gov was terrified of post-quantum cryptography. 10x a day I had to answer questions about PQKD.
Maybe some very well funded quantum projects have made certain implementations broken- but it never really mattered, because why have PQKD when you have XKCD. lol
Id still employ social engineering, deepfakes, and violence over the cost of building a machine.
By the way, we all know the Cloudflare lava lamps? I built a laser diode/beam splitter random number generator at home, fun toy.
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#4There's no mystery here. One country came up with some arbitrary criteria, and the other countries copied them.
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#5There's no mystery here. One country came up with some arbitrary criteria, and the other countries copied them.
Yeah, I suspect. As the article notes, it might be related to quantum simulation limits (e.g., QISKIT can't IIRC simulate more than 32 qubits), or taken from the literature on using Grover's alg to attack S-AES, but it feels pretty arbitrary to me (though I haven't been current on quantum computing for several years now).
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#6Discussions
(15 points, 2 days ago, 6 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40865218
(20 points, 17 hours ago, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40879417
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#7Hmmm.... I wonder if someone has finally cracked RSA or its friends. I also remember a conspiracy theory that Bitcoin was actually made as a litmus test to know if\when someone somewhere achieves quantum supremacy (because then they would be able to crack the block....or something like that
The NSA and their ilk would not have waited for AES to be broken. They would move to ban these things in response to theoretical albeit confident assessment of the risk.
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#8Hmmm.... I wonder if someone has finally cracked RSA or its friends. I also remember a conspiracy theory that Bitcoin was actually made as a litmus test to know if\when someone somewhere achieves quantum supremacy (because then they would be able to crack the block....or something like that
The NSA and their ilk would not have waited for AES to be broken. They would move to ban these things in response to theoretical albeit confident assessment of the risk.
Hmm, that doesn't sound right to my ear.
They've loudly assumed it is possible.
c.f. Their focus has been on incentivizing private actors to do post-quantum algorithms, yesterday.
c.f. most recently, https://blog.chromium.org/2024/05/advancing-our-amazing-bet-...
Do you have more info on why they'd ban import of it? Seems like an obviously wrong strategy to combat it.
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#9Hmmm.... I wonder if someone has finally cracked RSA or its friends. I also remember a conspiracy theory that Bitcoin was actually made as a litmus test to know if\when someone somewhere achieves quantum supremacy (because then they would be able to crack the block....or something like that
I would put a fairly large wager on it just being bureaucratic dumbassitosity, and give you odds.
Re: Mysterious export controls on quantum computers
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
The NSA and their ilk would not have waited for AES to be broken. They would move to ban these things in response to theoretical albeit confident assessment of the risk.
Hmm, that doesn't sound right to my ear. They've loudly assumed it is possible. c.f. Their focus has been on incentivizing private actors to do post-quantum algorithms, yesterday. c.f. most recently, https://blog.chromium.org/2024/05/advancing-our-amazing-bet-... Do you have more info on why they'd ban import of it? Seems like an obviously wrong strategy to combat it.
Aren’t these export controls rather than import controls? That is, if a company in their bloc does succeed at developing cryptographically-relevant quantum computers, they’d just as soon that company not sell that tech on to the adversary?
As you said, they’ve loudly assumed it’s possible—so wouldn’t it make sense for them to draw a line in the sand now, before the horse has bolted, to indicate where the “now it’s a national security matter” threshold lies?