this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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This really is amazing to see. It feels like just year when we were discussing 1, 2, or 10 qubits.
Are there any/many current uses for these quantum computers?
breaking encryption algorithms
From what i heard, even 1,000 qubits isn't close to enough for modern passwords: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00017-0
Paywall. Also, passwords and RSA are two different things.
Reversing hashing algos is what people mean when they talk about quantum computers cracking passwords / encryption, though.
No, they mean breaking RSA. The industry standard methods of storing passwords are resistant to QC attacks. Passwords could be broken while being passed between client and server under existing algorithms, but not the databases they're stored in.
For now they are only being used for research purposes. For example, simulating Quantum effects in many atom physics and implementing error correction for future quantum computers. Any real applications still need some time but the pace of development is really quite something.
Currently, there is basically only one real world application we really know: Factoring numbers into prime factors. And we can't know for sure whether there will be more even.
Sorry, but that's completely wrong. There has been a lot of research into quantum algorithms, and we have many examples besides Shor's algorithm, for example: https://www.amarchenkova.com/posts/5-quantum-algorithms-that-could-change-the-world
I am a physicist and truly appreciate the effect of quantum computing on our simulations, but with "real world" I meant proper industrial use. And for that, there are hardly any algorithms known except Shor's. When the CEO of Deutsche Bank says he will do his bank transactions on a quantum computer, you know the topic is over-hyped.
Edit: A video that explains this by a theoretical physicist working on the foundations of quantum mechanics
I understand that you can't just translate random algorithms to quantum computers and expect them to run better - but I did link an overview of 5 quantum algorithms that have real world uses, and Shor's is only one of them.
I don't consider Sabine Hossenfelder a person worth listening to. She frequently comments on topics she doesn't know much about/has a very biased view of (e.g. her transphobic video).
Yeah, Hossenfelder has had a bad habit of stepping outside of her lane. From what I've heard from physicists, she's questionable even inside her lane.
She might have strong opinions on particle physics and I do take them with a grain of salt, but I don't see objectively wrong things in there.
Given that you thought that factoring primes was the only real world application of QC, I frankly don't take your opinion here very seriously. Breaking encryption is one of the least interesting applications of QC. It's just the one that gets all the headlines. Yes, even for "proper industrial use".
Thanks for this productive discourse, not ad hominem at all. You're welcome to criticize my views and I'm happy to learn. And I am doing my physics masters, so I think I am no complete idiot. But this is also not productive.
Edit: I'm focusing on cosmology, I'm not claiming to be a quantum computing expert. That was just my last state of knowledge and I'm always happy to learn.
Focusing on what QC will do to encryption tends to mean you got most of your knowledge about them from pop sci articles. As you can see from this very thread, you're hardly alone in this, but it remains a big red flag for people who don't know what they're talking about on this subject.
Maybe I just mixed up the fact that proper industrial use is vastly overestimated/overhyped with that there is little use. I will do some research.
The pharmaceutical use alone would be revolutionary. There's a whole other discussion about how the pharmaceutical industry will continue to overcharge for drugs, but that's separate from the technology itself.
Are you talking about her video on trans athletes? I don't remember it being transphobic.
I'm talking about her video on transitions in general, not sure if you're referring to that or something else. She misrepresented the state of research (implying there's less research concluding transitions to be a good thing than there really is) and shared misinformation.
I don't think I was talking about this, interesting. Because in the video I mentioned she was fine with trans athletes competing together with cis athletes, which seemed very progressive to me. But I'm happy to be proven wrong.
I was talking about "Is being trans a social fad among teenagers?".
You're still wrong. Quantum computers have use for developing new medications through simulating chemical interactions, and in making logistics more efficient. The hit against encryption is vastly overrated, and may not even be feasible.
Wasn't there a study that, with the current approach of evaluating an average to break it down to a few finite states, they might never be able to do for what they were developed; cracking passwords?
If by "cracking passwords" you mean reversing password hashes in a database, quantum computers aren't going to make a big dent there. The standard industry ways of doing that wouldn't be affected much by QCs. Breaking encryption, OTOH, with QCs is a concern, but also vastly overrated. It would take orders of magnitude more qubits to pull off than what's been worked on so far, and it may not be feasible to juggle that many qubits in a state of superposition.
I get really annoyed when people focus on breaking encryption with QCs. They are far more interesting and useful than that.
QC can make logistics more efficient. Have you ever seen photos of someone unpacking a giant Amazon box holding one little micro SD card? Amazon isn't dumb about these things, but our best methods of packing an entire truck is a guess. Packing algorithms would take too long to calculate how to perfectly pack it, so they come up with a solution that seems OK, and that leads to a few "filler" boxes that are unnecessarily large, among other inefficiencies. QC can solve this problem without taking the age of the universe to come up with a solution.
The order in which that truck delivers those packages can also be made more efficient with QC.
Then there's molecular simulations, which have the promise of making medications that are more effective, more likely to pass trials, and with fewer side effects. This can be done far faster on a QC.
Interesting, I’ve only really heard of breaking encryption with them. Is there already a proven algorithm for packing that could be reasonably done with a qc not too far into the future
There is. Here's a couple of papers:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39013-9
https://www.ripublication.com/gjpam21/gjpamv17n1_02.pdf
I dont think that the only use of Quantum computers is password cracking, rather that one of the types of work loads thats much easier on a quantum computer.
bitcoin mining.
Man, if something like this could make crypto obsolete, I would laugh like a mf.
It mines all possible bitcoins and it's over for the rest of crypto too
There’d just be new cryptocurrencies. There are crypto algorithms that are already quantum resistant. Monero is a great example.
You seem to be under the impression that crypto somewhat relies on current technology to exist. It’s a set of heuristics and algorithms, not a single implementation. And those can evolve for new use cases or technologies.
What you said is akin to “if something like this could make databases obsolete”.
The question, the problem with crypto, is not how, it's why?
It isn't about if we can or cannot. It's about the usecase of it all.
For now, the only use case crypto has is wel... Betting. It's hard to call it anything else like speculation.
You would be out of your mind to use it as a currency. The worth of crypto is too volatile. Even black market usage is problematic due to this. (did i just buy a pound of coke for 50k or 100k? Who knows? I guess we see tomorrow)
It also is too slow to use as a currency; the transaction times are off the charts compared to other forms.
It also is the most wasteful form for storing wealth.
It's also the most risky way for storing wealth. The amount of hacks and scams are insane.
It, in its current form will never be a legal tender. Currency is about control for governments, to devalue or not, to prop up the economy, boosting it or easing it down when needed and crypto doesn't provide that. So to use that wealth you'll always need an exchange. A third party. Which, recent history has thought us, are very prone to abuse and regulation. they can be banned overnight. (China comes to mind)
It's a solution. The question is for what. The popularity of it all is based on 2 things : greed and the fear of missing out. (which again boils down to greed)
Not how it works as far as I know. If people start mining with a quantum computers the difficulty will increase making it even more secure (one of bitcoins main features). Traditional computers will drop out due to lack of rewards and more powerful quantum computers will enter and compete with the original quantum computers and the cycle continues. It’s a self balancing system.
But you have control of the network with a majority of mining right? So it's very possible that one or more organisations could control it for long enough that it's not trusted?
And how does proof of stake work cryptography?
I’m not really a great source for this stuff but I would assume that the quantum computer would have to be more powerful than all of the other mining compute combined for that to happen. Then it would have to be so far ahead that no new quantum computers were coming online to compete against it.
The other part is incentive. If you want to take over 50% of the network the incentive wouldn’t be to double spend because once it’s detected the price collapses due to lack of trust, bitcoins fundamentals change and it’s no longer decentralised effectively making it another centralised shitcoin. There could be incentive for a government to do this or a rival currency but bitcoin is fundamental to all crypto currencies so they would be damaging themselves greatly in the process.
I can’t answer your proof of stake question with any confidence
QC would be completely devastating to bitcoin. Anyone with a sufficient QC could break any block of the bitcoin chain they want, essentially giving all the bitcoins to themselves. There are other cryptocurrencies that are quantum-resistant, but bitcoin itself would be done.
I would assume in the face of that the bitcoin network would have to change its consensus to include quantum resistance. I think this is possible but not sure