“Planning the transition to quantum-safe cryptosystems requires understanding the cost of quantum attacks on vulnerable cryptosystems,” Google Quantum Researcher Craig Gidney wrote. “In Gidney+Ekerå 2019, I co-published an estimate stating that 2048 bit RSA integers could be factored in eight hours by a quantum computer with 20 million noisy qubits. In this paper, I substantially reduce the number of qubits required.”
"This is a 20-fold decrease in the number of qubits from our previous estimate," the Google researcher said in an official blog post.
But it’s not like it’s going to happen anytime soon. For context, IBM's Condor (the most powerful quantum computer to date) tops out at 1,121 qubits while Google's own Sycamore runs on 53. So your coins are still safe—for now. The trajectory is what matters, and it's pointing in a direction that should make anyone holding crypto sit up and pay attention.
The breakthrough, Google says, comes from two places: “better algorithms and smarter error correction.” On the algorithm side, researchers figured out how to make calculations for modular exponentiations—the heavy mathematical lifting in encryption—twice as fast, whereas the error correction improvements is possible because the team tripled density of the logical qubits space by adding a new layer of error correction, effectively packaging more useful quantum operations into the same physical space.
They also deployed something called "magic state cultivation"—basically a trick to make special quantum ingredients (called T states) stronger and more reliable, so quantum computers can perform complex tasks more efficiently without wasting extra resources—to reduce the workspace needed for basic quantum operations.
Bitcoin relies on elliptic curve cryptography, which works on similar mathematical principles to RSA. If quantum computers can crack RSA faster than expected, Bitcoin's security timeline just got compressed. The cryptocurrency's 256-bit encryption is stronger than the older RSA keys Google studied, but not by as much as you might hope when dealing with exponential scaling. (...)
"Bitcoin's security relies on elliptic curve cryptography. Quantum computers running Shor's algorithm will eventually break it," Project 11 wrote when announcing their challenge. "We're testing how urgent the threat is."
The security implications extend beyond crypto. RSA and similar systems underpin global secure communications, from banking to digital signatures. Google noted that adversaries could already be collecting encrypted data now to decrypt later once quantum computers become available, so they are preparing for this imminent future. (...)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology released post-quantum cryptography standards last year and recommended phasing out vulnerable systems after 2030. Google's research suggests that timeline might need acceleration. (...)
A quantum computing breakthrough could one day undermine the cryptography that secures the Bitcoin blockchain and its nearly $1.7 trillion worth of assets. Now, a BTC bounty is putting that threat to the test. On Wednesday, quantum computing research group Project 11 announced a prize of 1 BTC—currently worth nearly $85,000—for the first team to break a simplified version of Bitcoin’s elliptic curve cryptography, or ECC, using a quantum computer.
"Bitcoin's security relies on elliptic curve cryptography. Quantum computers running Shor's algorithm will eventually break it," Project 11 wrote when announcing their challenge. "We're testing how urgent the threat is."
The security implications extend beyond crypto. RSA and similar systems underpin global secure communications, from banking to digital signatures. Google noted that adversaries could already be collecting encrypted data now to decrypt later once quantum computers become available, so they are preparing for this imminent future. (...)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology released post-quantum cryptography standards last year and recommended phasing out vulnerable systems after 2030. Google's research suggests that timeline might need acceleration. (...)
A quantum computing breakthrough could one day undermine the cryptography that secures the Bitcoin blockchain and its nearly $1.7 trillion worth of assets. Now, a BTC bounty is putting that threat to the test. On Wednesday, quantum computing research group Project 11 announced a prize of 1 BTC—currently worth nearly $85,000—for the first team to break a simplified version of Bitcoin’s elliptic curve cryptography, or ECC, using a quantum computer.
by Emerge/Decrypt | Read more:
Image: Shutterstock/Bitcoin[ed. Follow up to Trump's meme coin scam (below). Definitely worth checking out the whole fiasco here (with video).]
