The NSA Is Building a Quantum Computer that will allow it to break any encryption!
 

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/2/526...puter-research

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-seeks-to-build-quantum-computer-that-could-crack-most-types-of-encryption/2014/01/02/8fff297e-7195-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_t witter_washingtonpost

The NSA is funding quantum computer work that it hopes will allow it to break virtually any encryption used today, The Washington Post reports ? though there's no sign it's managed to crack the puzzle better than any of the other companies or agencies working on the same thing. Leaks from Edward Snowden reveal a $79.7 million research program called "Penetrating Hard Targets," including classified funding to research a quantum computer that could be used for cryptography. The Post says that much of the research is being done at the University of Maryland's Laboratory for Physical Sciences, but not much more is revealed about the program, including how far quantum computing work has actually progressed.

Quantum computing hinges, very broadly, on allowing individual bits (called qubits) to contain superimposed values of zero and one, vastly increasing computing power. Its implications for cryptography, medicine, and research have made it a major goal for public services and private industry alike: DARPA has devoted years of funding to quantum computing research, and Google launched its own "Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab" last year. But while qubits have been stored for a limited period of time under certain conditions, and specialized machines have been built using quantum technology, that's not enough for practical code-breaking applications. Last year, for example,The Economist all but ruled out the possibility that the NSA had a crypto-ready quantum computer.

The NSA's program, part of the larger intelligence community "Black Budget," doesn't actually task anybody with building a quantum computer. According to the memo, it asks researchers to "conduct basic research in quantum physics and architecture/engineering studies to determine if, and how, a cryptographically useful quantum computer can be built." So while the grant fits with the NSA's general mission ? and quantum computing could one day pose a real threat to present-day encryption methods ? it's a lot more theoretical than the agency's ability to, say, seed malware to computers from miles away.

I saw something on Reddit about this and it sounds like a load of crap.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer

A quantum computer (also known as a quantum supercomputer) is a computation device that makes direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits), quantum computation uses quantum properties to represent data and perform operations on these data.[1] A theoretical model is the quantum Turing machine, also known as the universal quantum computer. Quantum computers share theoretical similarities with non-deterministic and probabilistic computers. One example is the ability to be in more than one state simultaneously. The field of quantum computing was first introduced by Yuri Manin in 1980[2] and Richard Feynman in 1982.[3][4] A quantum computer with spins as quantum bits was also formulated for use as a quantum space?time in 1969.[5]

As of 2014 quantum computing is still in its infancy but experiments have been carried out in which quantum computational operations were executed on a very small number of qubits (quantum bits).[6] Both practical and theoretical research continues, and many national governments and military funding agencies support quantum computing research to develop quantum computers for both civilian and national security purposes, such as cryptanalysis.[7]

Large-scale quantum computers will be able to solve certain problems much more quickly than any classical computer using the best currently known algorithms, like integer factorization using Shor's algorithm or the simulation of quantum many-body systems. There exist quantum algorithms, such as Simon's algorithm, which run faster than any possible probabilistic classical algorithm.[8] Given sufficient computational resources, a classical computer could be made to simulate any quantum algorithm; quantum computation does not violate the Church?Turing thesis.[9] However, the computational basis of 500 qubits, for example, would already be too large to be represented on a classical computer because it would require 2500 complex values (2501 bits) to be stored.[10] (For comparison, a terabyte of digital information is only 243 bits.)

for every measure there is a counter measure ...
 

$80 mill is nowhere near enough to do anything valuable in the research of Q computing, however $80 mill would go a long way towards "researching" other peoples "research" .....

Quantum Leap

wtf,
my dual core can also break any encryption but it will take 1000+ years .
the main question is how fast?

they usually dont need to break encryption, as there are holes provided by many security companies...paid by NSA also...

I like to sentence: "$79.7 million research program titled ?Penetrating Hard Targets.?" heh...

anyway, I highly doubt that it is possible to break "any encryption"...mathematics rules dont allow that...it all depends on time...

if someone is using encryption and changes his encryption methods and keys frequently they still can intercept his traffic but see nothing...multiply it with milions of users doing it = they dont have time and possibility for that....

enjoy ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgW2pet5CJc
https://www.youtube.com/user/CCCen

they allready have hardware that can break most things just a matter of time.

I like loads of crap.... :2 cents:

resistance is futile.....

Quantum computers have many applications for today?s scientific community, including the creation of artificial intelligence. But the NSA fears the implications for national security.

All I want is a computer that can accurately tell me if I will need to take an umbrella with me.

If there's a news story about the NSA developing something... it's already been developed.:2 cents:

This article is good:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...t-can-explain/

"Almost all of the public-key encryption that is currently used would be breakable in principle by a quantum computer. That includes RSA, Diffie-Hellman, ElGamal, elliptic curve cryptography. On the other side, if you look at private-key cryptography, the kind where you have to agree on the key in advance, then most private-key cryptography you don't know how to break with a quantum computer."

"Another response that you could take, ironically, is to switch to quantum cryptography. It's a completely different way of doing encryption. It uses fiber-optic cables that can transmit photons that maintain polarization. Cryptography based on quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle. This is actually practical right now. There are companies that sell quantum crypto devices: ID Quantique and Magiq. They do work, but there is a limited market for them. It's an exotic solution to a problem that most people think is solved with existing cryptography. Some people joke that the point of quantum computers is to create a market for quantum cryptography."

http://www.idquantique.com/
http://www.idquantique.com/network-e...tribution.html
http://www.idquantique.com/network-e...ology/qkd.html
http://www.idquantique.com/network-e...-security.html

http://www.magiqtech.com/
http://www.magiqtech.com/MagiQ/Produ...sheet-2011.pdf

not really :)

Not too surprising. They have to be on top of it, like it or not...

They would deserve to be fired if they weren't trying to do it.

The name itself is scary.

Hasn't anyone here heard of D-Wave?

http://www.dwavesys.com/en/dw_homepage.html

You're welcome, Americans



Here's a primer:

Not sure how much it helps changing your key...

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/28/rsas-deal-with-the-nsa-shows-how-mistrust-is-spreading-everywhere/

Well DUHRRRR! But you're not doing anything wrong. So quit closing the curtain when you take a shower or locking your doors at night... No need for that safety deposit box or any personal secrets.

Privacy makes you human and who the hell would want that??

Exactly.

:thumbsup:thumbsup

As someone noted, most of the early quantum stuff been built in Canada (d-wave is not a full quantum one, it is "just" annealing, a specific subset case, but nice anyway), Swiss etc., not USA really. Be sure Russia, China (their guys always win the math olympiads) built stuff too (lots russians in D-Wave canada office...), just they are more secretive.

NSA it is simply paying a few people as matter of consult what the hell this quantum thing it is going to be, in case. Quantum stuff it is not (yet) classified and regulated as nuclear energy or bombs. There is free exchange of info between scientists and USA (=NSA) got a minority role in the world really. Unless and until united nations will have a Quantum agency with inspectors going around to check scientists (like for uranium and plutonium things), there will be free exchange of info and progress will be known in realtime, either from universities or commercial vendors.

We not yet got fully functional and reliable qubits in hardware (I repeat: D-wave is a subset only, not the complete thing - still the nicest one you can buy for $1M today). Anyone can follow what's the state of qubit hardware implementation on the proper forums and repositories, for example this:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.0257v1.pdf
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.7579v1.pdf
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.6866v1.pdf
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4647v1.pdf

Said this, there is space for conspiracy theory of course.
For example a friend of mine who lives in China, uses an encrypted VPN in order to access the wide internet (facebook, netflix and such). He say that depending what he browses, despite VPN is encrypted, he gets "stopped traffic" from ISP, needing to restart, like if chinese govt firewall it can decrypt his VPN realtime. It coud be paranoia :)

Building a Quantum Computer that will allow it to break any encryption ???

Don't kid yourselves... They already have one.

This is just more of the same sort bullshit that they've been pulling since the 1960s.

They have computer power to brake any encryption, so fuck that shit

if they had, they wouldnt ask for keys and bribe security companies...

cut the BS please ;-)

Super Cool.

Stop it Mark Canada is a colony of America we just let you think you are Independent.:1orglaugh

I can't even watch a movie on my computer without it freezing.

The NSA has pretty much ended any future tech industry in the US. France just found back doors in components from the US used in their satellites. No one is ever going to buy shit from the US again as they will never trust it's secure.

The US tech industry is gonna be fucked and I bet they start moving offshore to survive.