There is a race to crack the most common encryption algorithms. The official estimation is that they are 30 years away from it (reduced from the original 100 years they provided only 5 years ago), so their progress is faster that they expected and this tech is now considered a weapon.
The country that gets there first will have a very valuable window of opportunity… It’s a race.
30 years away from it (reduced from the original 100 years they provided only 5 years ago)
More like estimates on this are completely unreliable. As in that 100 years could have as well been 1000 years. It was pretty much “until an unpredictable technological paradigm shift happens”. “100 years in future” is “when we have warp drives and star gates” of estimates. Pretty “when we have advanced to next level of advancement and technology, whenever it happens. 100 years should be good minimum of this not being taken as an actual year number estimate”.
30 years is “we see maybe a potential path to this via hypothetical developments of technology in horizon”. It’s the classical “Fusion is always 30 years away”. Until one time it isn’t, but that 30 year loop can go on indefinitely, if the hypothetical don’t turn to reality. Since you know we thought “maybe that will work, once we put out mind in to it”. Oh it didn’t, on to chasing next path.
I only know of one project, that has 100 year estimate, that is real. That is the Onkalo deep repository of spent fuel in Finland. It has estimate of spending 100 years being filled and is to be sealed in 2120’s and that is an actual date. Since all the tech is known, the sealing process is known, it just happens to take a century to fill the repository bit by bit. Finland is kinda stable country and radiation hazard such long term, that whatever government is to be there in 2120’s, they will most likely seal the repository.
Unless “we invent warp drives” happens before that and some new process of actually efficiently and very safely getting rid of the waste is found in some process. (and no that doesn’t include current recycling methods. Since those aren’t that good to get rid of this large amount and with small enough risk of side harms. Surprise, this was studied by Finland as alternative and it was simply decided “recycling is not good enough, simple enough, efficient enough and safe enough yet. Bury it in bedrock tomb”).
Anything that’s “30 years away” is essentially not going to happen. Quantum cryptography will advance faster than the ability to break it because there will be more money behind it.
That’s not really the concern, quantum cryptography already works, we have more robust encryption techniques.
The problem is that the planet has a whole lot of saved communications still encrypted with old techniques, and those are all at risk of being decrypted later. If you were transmitting encrypted data, knowing that there’s was a man in the middle, you probably felt pretty clever, as even the watchers couldn’t read it… But they could record it and save it. Now all those saved recordings are likely to come out.
Infinite quantum instantiation would allow anyone with the technology to instantly find massive prime factors and decrypt anything.
No more secrets.
Sneakers (1992) “no more secrets”: https://youtu.be/F5bAa6gFvLs?si=0OAFE-Pp2_Bc8AI8 Not quantum computing of course but still, a great movie.
Yup. Good movie.
