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Crypto Archives: Re: Universal Quantum Computers

Re: Universal Quantum Computers

Subject: Re: Universal Quantum Computers
From: mgraffamidsi.net
Date: Wed Dec 01 1999 - 15:54:24 CST

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Mike Rosing wrote:

> It will eventually work and it will eventually be *very* important.
> Individual qubits make some things like factoring easier. A whole lot
> of qubits in parallel will make molecular design easy (or at least
> doable).

I hear a lot about how cryptography is going to need to be changed around
with the advent of quantum computing.

If a working quantum computer were invented today, what sort of crypto
tools would need to get thrown away, and what sorts of stuff could we
keep?

Off the top, we know that we get to keep Shamir's secret sharing scheme
and the OTP -- they are perfect.

It seems to me that basically any symmetric algorithm with a large enough
keyspace stays too: even a quantum computer is going to have trouble
counting to 2^512, right? Even if we can search in a parallel fashion
each operation takes energy.. and we can only burn so much of it.

As you noted, factoring gets to be a bit easier, so maybe we have to
give up RSA?

Is there any work at developing PK systems that will be difficult for
quantum computers?

Michael J. Graffam (mgraffamidsi.net)
"Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine."
                        Henry David Thoreau "Civil Disobedience"

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