Report: NSA Looking To Crack All Encryption With Quantum Computer - PCWorld

[WillyT]

Report: NSA looking to crack all encryption with quantum computer
Martyn Williams - PCWorld
Jan 3, 2014 6:32 AM

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The U.S. National Security Agency is attempting to build a new breed of supercomputer that theoretically could make short work of cracking most keys used for encrypted communications.

The project to build “a cryptographically useful quantum computer” is part of an $80 million research project called “Penetrating Hard Targets” that is taking place at a campus in College Park, Maryland, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper quoted documents it said were provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-seeks-to-build-quantum-computer-that-could-crack-most-types-of-encryption/2014/01/02/8fff297e-7195-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html

Since the early days of encryption, an important defense in the security of each system has been the amount of time it would take to attack and discover the encryption key. The longer the time required, the greater the motivation and financial investment needed to discover the key.

As computers have gotten more powerful, longer encryption keys that are harder to crack have been employed, so today keys of 256 bits or more are common, especially for sensitive information. Even with a powerful supercomputer, experts generally agree it would take many years to crack a single key of 256 bits or more.

Quantum computing turns all of that around...

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More: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2083760/report-nsa-looking-to-crack-all-encryption-with-quantum-computer.html

[whatchamacallit]

1. Fuck yeah NSA!

I remember privacy... I liked privacy...

[mike_c]

2. a good one-time pad is still pretty indecipherable....

Ultimately it comes down to a question of media vulnerability. Electronic communications are low hanging fruit, not least because until fairly recently most people thought they were mostly secure, most of the time. But a one-time cipher carried by an unknown courier will always be uncrackable if it adheres to some pretty simple message conventions.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Scary as these implications are

it's even worse when you consider that other governments are working toward the same end - cracking all encryption. Knowing that the NSA can do it is bad enough, but it's feasible that some bad actors could put this technology toward some really malevolent uses.

[WillyT]

4. I Hear Ya... But Which Bad Actors Would Have The Money And The Technology ???

Just curious...

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Well, from all appearances, these guys seem to be up to no good

Chinese Army Unit Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.

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“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”

Other security firms that have tracked “Comment Crew” say they also believe the group is state-sponsored, and a recent classified National Intelligence Estimate, issued as a consensus document for all 16 of the United States intelligence agencies, makes a strong case that many of these hacking groups are either run by army officers or are contractors working for commands like Unit 61398, according to officials with knowledge of its classified content.

Mandiant provided an advance copy of its report to The New York Times, saying it hoped to “bring visibility to the issues addressed in the report.” Times reporters then tested the conclusions with other experts, both inside and outside government, who have examined links between the hacking groups and the army (Mandiant was hired by The New York Times Company to investigate a sophisticated Chinese-origin attack on its news operations, but concluded it was not the work of Comment Crew, but another Chinese group. The firm is not currently working for the Times Company but it is in discussions about a business relationship.)

While Comment Crew has drained terabytes of data from companies like Coca-Cola, increasingly its focus is on companies involved in the critical infrastructure of the United States — its electrical power grid, gas lines and waterworks. According to the security researchers, one target was a company with remote access to more than 60 percent of oil and gas pipelines in North America. The unit was also among those that attacked the computer security firm RSA, whose computer codes protect confidential corporate and government databases.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

There are undoubtedly other governments with a goal of striking a blow against the US without military involvement, and those with money can buy the technology and pay the hackers.