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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132131
Posted: 23 September 2020 at 7:28am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

My Head Hurts!
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Michael Penn
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Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12406
Posted: 23 September 2020 at 7:37am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Ya know, occasionally I flatter myself that, well, I can be at times a somewhat bright fellow. And then... something like this... and...

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Vinny Valenti
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Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8007
Posted: 23 September 2020 at 7:56am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

In the long term, quantum computing will pretty much make all current encryption methods obsolete, since they could be trivially cracked. Transitioning world-wide to quantum could be _extremely_ thorny.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4407
Posted: 23 September 2020 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

To quote the late great Denny Doherty... "Hah?" :^.
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Jim Burdo
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Joined: 19 April 2020
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Posts: 335
Posted: 24 September 2020 at 1:52am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

But then quantum computing will lead to uncrackable quantum encryption.
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Conrad Teves
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Joined: 28 January 2014
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Posted: 24 September 2020 at 2:37am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Just to clarify something, we have in fact had an unbreakable cipher since before WW2, i.e., the (remarkably simple) Vernam Cipher or "One Time Pad," which was even used in the field by the US Military during WW2.  It is so far the only provably secure cipher that is only vulnerable to theft of the keys (or related misuse). It has a number of large drawbacks for widespread electronic communications, not the least of which is that the encryption keys must (as the name indicates) only be used one time, be truly random, and have to be the same size as the message. (There's a list of other basic precautions at the link above).  Generally, it is only used between two points that are likely physically  guarded (like the old US-Soviet hotline, which was a teletype) or things like that.

As to why the Germans or anyone else besides the US didn't routinely use it in WW2 (as it was in no way secret), is doubtless because of the inconveniences it imposes.  The US, at least had sufficient paranoia to build infrastructure that would allow its use.

If you are at all interested in the subject, I can highly recommend David Kahn's "The Codebreakers."  I was truly amazed at the number of people who have died because of compromised communications.

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Ted Pugliese
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Joined: 05 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 7979
Posted: 24 September 2020 at 4:25am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

This is awesome!
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