{"id":9104,"date":"2020-06-24T01:26:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T22:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.media\/?p=9104"},"modified":"2020-06-24T18:55:16","modified_gmt":"2020-06-24T15:55:16","slug":"are-rsa-and-cryptocurrencies-safe-despite-quantum-computing-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/are-rsa-and-cryptocurrencies-safe-despite-quantum-computing-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Are RSA and Cryptocurrencies Safe Despite Quantum Computing Progress?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A large aerospace contractor Honeywell released<\/a> a quantum computer that\u2019s heralded as the highest-performing device of the kind to date. The company plans on using Microsoft Azure to make its devices commercially available to a wide audience. Yet, the technology is decades from being a threat to cryptography and the very claim of Honeywell\u2019s device superiority is questioned.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In this piece, we look at the key facts surrounding the Honeywell\u2019s breakthrough announcement and explain what it means for cryptocurrencies, modern encryption, and the quantum computing field in general.<\/p>\n

Honeywell\u2019s Conditional Leadership<\/h2>\n

Given that there is no standard way of making quantum computers and each particular machine is better at certain tasks, there is no easy way to compare a bunch of different systems and say which one is better overall.<\/p>\n

Looking at things like the number of qubits (quantum counterpart of classical bits) in the device isn\u2019t really helpful. In 2019, Google reached<\/a> quantum supremacy with 53 qubits under the hood, but there are systems that have thousands of them, such as D-Wave\u2019s 2000Q<\/a> with 2048 qubits. The way qubits are structured, the computational tasks in question, the extent of cross-talk between circuits, and errors have their effect on performance.<\/p>\n

The key parameter used to compare the capabilities of Honeywell\u2019s quantum computer to alternative solutions is quantum volume. Introduced by IBM in 2017, it is a complex metric derived from the number of qubits in the computer, their interconnectedness, error rate, and other nuances. Quantum volume is meant to be a hardware-agnostic measurement of the performance of a real quantum computer.<\/p>\n

In 2020, IBM themselves demonstrated<\/a> a system with a quantum volume of 32. If the metric works as intended, Honeywell\u2019s quantum computer is twice as powerful with a quantum volume of 64. The thing is that these are the only two companies to use this metric.<\/p>\n

According to Venture Beat, other quantum computing companies like D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti weren\u2019t too enthusiastic<\/a> about the quantum volume metric as it fails to \u201cfully capture the nuances of different approaches to quantum computing and applications\u201d and \u201cdoesn\u2019t take use cases into account.\u201d<\/p>\n

Effectively, the announcement means that Honeywell\u2019s device is twice as good as the one made by IBM, while it isn\u2019t exactly clear how it compares to other systems.<\/p>\n

Quantum Threat to Cryptography Remains Remote And Avoidable<\/h2>\n

Since quantum computers started to become a thing, experts in the crypto-community and beyond expressed concerns about their potential to crack modern cryptography. Back in 2017, researchers estimated<\/a> that quantum computers will be able to brute force Bitcoin\u2019s cryptography by 2027, given that their clock speed increases substantially.<\/p>\n

In 2019, IBM executives warned that the quantum threat to cryptocurrencies is real and isn\u2019t necessarily far away in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s reverse-engineering the private keys which represent the control of your wallet. Your public key is essentially your wallet which holds balances. And I think that\u2019s a real, credible threat. Bitcoin is a public ledger. So you can go out and see which public keys are holding the largest balances and you could go out and target those […] I think that\u2019s even a near term threat,\u201d<\/i><\/b> Jesse Lund, vice president of blockchain and digital currencies at IBM, <\/i>told<\/i><\/a> Coindoo.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chief technology officer for IBM data security services Nev Zunic was similarly wary of the risks quantum computers may pose for businesses relying on encryption:<\/p>\n

\u201dCompanies need to be aware of quantum and the potential risk that it will bring so they can take actions today so that they are not hackable at some point in the life cycle of their products.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Still, it looks like the field is currently nowhere near that point while mining ASICs and cryptography methods evolve together with quantum computers.<\/p>\n

In 2018, in his article about quantum computing threat to Bitcoin, an American writer Jeffrey Tucker wrote<\/a> that a potentially dangerous device would take about ten years to develop, but by that time it would already be obsolete.<\/p>\n

Back when Google researchers broke their \u201cquantum supremacy\u201d news, Bitcoin developer and cryptographer Peter Todd dismissed the threat noting that the problem solved by Google\u2019s computer had nothing to do with breaking cryptography and scaling quantum computers to useful size may get increasingly complicated.<\/p>\n

\n

It means nothing because Google's quantum breakthrough is for a primitive type of quantum computing that is nowhere near breaking cryptography.<\/p>\n

We still don't even know if it's possible to scale quantum computers; quite possible that adding qbits will have an exponential cost. https:\/\/t.co\/wSmO6ycaJk<\/a><\/p>\n

— Peter Todd (@peterktodd) September 24, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n