The full power of next-generation quantum computing could soon be harnessed by millions of individuals and companies thanks to a breakthrough by scientists at Oxford’s Department of Physics guaranteeing security and privacy. The advance promises to unlock the transformative potential of cloud-based quantum computing and is detailed in a new study published in Physical Review Letters.
In the new study, the researchers use an approach known as ‘blind quantum computing’, which connects two totally separate quantum computing entities – potentially an individual at home or in an office accessing a cloud server – in a completely secure way. Importantly, their new methods could be scaled up to large quantum computations.
what use would a regular citizen have for a quantum computer?
“Guaranteeing security and privacy” could a strong argument imho.
couldn’t they get that with a regular computer?
So regular cryptography is threatened by quantum computing, for sure. I imagine you’d wind up with some kind of quantum coprocessor like we used to have for math back in the day because quantum computing isn’t a replacement for current computers.
That said, cloud-based quantum cryptography has a big hole in it: the connection to the cloud.
So regular cryptography is threatened by quantum computing
I don’t see that happen anytime soon. The theoretical advantage can’t be used because of practical disadvantages, so far.
Agreed, although I wonder how much further ahead state actors are compared to common knowledge. Standard encryption will be broken before most of us are aware, I think.
There are plenty of quantum resistant cryptography methods that already exist and have existed for a decade or more.
That said, cloud-based quantum cryptography has a big hole in it: the connection to the cloud.
Read the article, the whole point is making the connection to the cloud actually secure.
It’s still not your hardware, so you can’t rely on the data being private to you even if the connection is secure.
Then there’s going to be all the politics present with the location of whatever endpoint you connect to, issues of uptime and availability, etc.
It’s a matter of the threat model you’re concerned about, but this does not fill me with confidence if this is considered a “breakthrough solution”. There’s nothing quite like a half assed solution to kneecap work on a “proper” one.
From the article:
Using blind quantum computing, clients can access remote quantum computers to process confidential data with secret algorithms and even verify the results are correct, without revealing any useful information
This is a breakthrough because this level of security is impossible currently (as you allude to in your comment).
Availability will still be an issue, of course.
I read it but I didn’t see anything about local quantum encryption. Originally my comment talked about that until I realized they are just talking about accessing cloud-based quantum encryption. So I immediately edited it not to look like an idiot. If I’m still missing something, let me know, but I am not seeing it.
My point is that the article is about making cloud quantum computing secure; the article doesn’t even mention quantum encryption.
Maybe not once quantum computers become more common.
Our current encryption methods can be represented as wave functions. This allows a sufficiently large quantum computer to solve for the keys in very little time.
There are new algorithms being developed that should defend against this. So you may still be correct.
However, delegating quantum computations to a server carries the same privacy and security concerns that bedevil classical cloud computing. Users are currently unable to hide their work from the server or to independently verify their results in the regime where classical simulations become intractable. Remarkably, the same phenomena that enable quantum computing can leave the server “blind” in a way that conceals the client’s input, output, and algorithm [6–8]; because quantum information cannot be copied and measurements irreversibly change the quantum state, information stored in these systems can be protected with information-theoretic security, and incorrect operation of the server or attempted attacks can be detected—a surprising possibility which has no equivalent in classical computing.
From the paper the article talks about
If you’re thinking of quantum encryption, that’s entirely separate from quantum computing.
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Limited, but there might be a few. Generating the best route between two locations might be one.
There’s some stuff at medium sized businesses that would be useful, like how to pack a box most efficiently. Or many boxes in a truck.
Maybe some fast sorting algorithms, or compression? Not sure if there’s algorithmic efficiency to gain, there.
Your AI Girlfriend becoming even more real probably
Bitcoin mining
What more likely to come out first: quantum computing or nuclear fusion?
Hasn’t nuclear fusion been out for a while? I thought the sun did that for us.
I also doubt quantum computing would make its way into the consumer market in any practical form for a long time. To begin with, there needs to be a demand for it, and as far as I can tell, there’s not really any application the average consumer uses that can benefit from quantum computing. A fission power plant, on the other hand…
Yes
