410
submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There are theoretical limits to the speed of computation. One limit is the minimum amount of energy it takes to flip a bit. For 256-bit encryption, you have to start saying things like "assume we can convert 100% of the energy from a supernova into a theoretically perfect computer with perfect efficiency". This is a round about way of saying "impossible".

We've been hammering AES and RSA for decades now, and we haven't been able to get significantly better than brute force against either one. Quantum computers will break RSA (if they can be made with enough qbits, but might be infeasible), but worst case scenario for AES is that we double the key length and we're good again.

this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
410 points (97.2% liked)

Technology

59559 readers
1848 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS