Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

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> It is estimated that 2048-bit RSA keys could be broken on a quantum computer comprising 4,000 qubits and 100 million gates. Experts speculate that quantum computers of this size may be available within the next 20-30 years.

https://www.entrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/WP_Quantu...

The paper is from 2009, so ~2030 to break 2048-bit RSA seems about right. If they can double the number of qubits every two years, then we should have:

100-qubit by 2020.

200-qubit by 2022

400 qubit by 2024

800 qubit by 2026

1600 qubit by 2028

3200 qubit by 2030

6400 qubit by 2032.

It's also possible the rate of progress will be slightly higher than 2x every 2 years, so doing it a few years sooner than that is not out of the question.

Also, you have to consider that once you get a quantum computer that can break 2048-RSA, you'll be able to break all the encrypted communications you've stored in the past few years, too. So you can't "switch-on" the quantum-resistant crypto in 2031 and think you're all good. You have to do it as soon as possible, especially after practical quantum computers that are capable of scaling in a scheduled way start appearing (which seems to have happened).

Plus, even if Google is super-quick to adopt quantum-resistant crypto, doesn't mean the rest of the internet will be, too. It could take a few more years for that to happen, too.

From the Wikipedia timeline[1], it seems to be growing linearly.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_quantum_computing

To quote my thesis advisor's terrible joke: "Everything's linear to first order"

Not too long ago I summarized every datapoint in that page. It is almost perfectly linear (there's 1 qubit lower somewhere, 1 qubit higher elsewhere), the noise is way lower than anything I was expecting to see.

>Also, you have to consider that once you get a quantum computer that can break 2048-RSA, you'll be able to break all the encrypted communications you've stored in the past few years, too

isn't that what PFS is supposed to prevent?

PFS can slow it down a bit, but not much. Assuming before PFS everyone changed their keys every 3 years, and with PFS they change them every 2 weeks, then it should be about 80x harder (slower to break the encryption). 80x harder may seem like a lot but it's not that much in the context of quantum computers.

Also, PFS uses 256-bit ECC, which only requires a 512-qubit quantum computer to break it. So it's possible that a 4,000 qubit quantum computer, or even a smaller one, could break ECC with PFS even faster than it can break 2048-bit RSA.

> Also, PFS uses 256-bit ECC, which only requires a 512-qubit quantum computer to break it.

Grover's algorithm is a quadratic, not exponential speedup. It may require 512 qubits, but it still requires 2^128 time.

ECC is vulnerable to Shor's algorithm, which gives exponential speedup. A rough calculation implies that 256-bit ECC would take on the order of 25k quantum operations to break.

You have to divide the qubit count by 100 to account for error correction.

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