Chinese scientists claim they broke RSA encryption with a quantum computer \ stacker news ~science

They have done it on a 50 bit model, so it doesn't mean that Emails and WhatsApp are unsafe now. However...

The research is an interesting proof of concept that reinforces the expectation that quantum computers can one day decrypt modern encryption technologies. Although not stated in the paper, the natural next steps for research like this will examine how D-Wave Advantage and quantum annealing can cope with encryption models with larger integers, such as 128- or 256-bit integers.

It also signals that quantum computers are coming and will have an impact on security that relies on encryption. That is why scientists are also building post-quantum cryptography technologies — a type of cryptography that uses algorithms that are resistant to being solved by quantum computers. However, like quantum computers, this technology is still years away from full realization.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheMorningStar 8h

It'd be interesting to see how many more years this technology takes up to be worthwhile. A lot of work need to be done.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln 1h

While interesting for the proof of concept with 50 bits, we're still far from modern day RSA which is often 2048 bits.

And making larger and larger quantum computers is likely to be exponentially more difficult too. Still, lots of progress in recent years.