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Mathematician warns NSA may be weakening next-gen encryption (www.newscientist.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Mathematician warns NSA may be weakening next-gen encryption::Quantum computers may soon be able to crack encryption methods in use today, so plans are already under way to replace them with new, secure algorithms. Now it seems the US National Security Agency may be undermining that process

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[–] Ultraviolet@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn't the existence of key collision help? If you throw a quantum brute force algorithm at a ciphertext, wouldn't you get a long list of keys, all of which authenticate and appear to work, but for all but one of those keys, what it decrypts to is garbage?

Authentication itself is fucked, but encryption is only heavily weakened rather than completely destroyed.

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah but that's precisely the problem. Cut the list down to say a million choices vs quadrillions, and have a regular lower power server work through that much smaller list.

Don't forget, this is gen 1 of the quantum systems as well... Who knows what the future holds. Better to make the lock strong now.