If suitably powerful quantum computers can one day be built, many cryptosystems in common use today could be vulnerable due to something called quantum factorisation. Dr Stephan Neuhaus, senior lecturer at InIT, and Dr Peter Gutmann of the University of Auckland show in a new paper that all currently published records in quantum factorisation were only achieved through trickery. In order to demonstrate that these do not pose a threat to currently used cryptosystems, they replicate those records with an 8-bit home computer from 1981, an abacus, and a dog.
  • dbtng@eviltoast.orgOPEnglish
    11·
    15 hours ago

    Technocrit buried the lead when they posted this. Here it is with the actual paper highlighted.

    Here’s another paper describing the issues at play. This one is a bit more serious.
    Craig Gidney - Why haven’t quantum computers factored 21 yet?
    https://algassert.com/post/2500

    And apparently this field is ripe for humor. And Buzz Lightyear graphics.
    The prior author did his own joke paper, which is too much for my head.
    Falling with Style: Factoring up to 255 “with” a Quantum Computer
    https://sigbovik.org/2025/proceedings.pdf#page=146

    • CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      7 hours ago

      Okay! Now we’re finally getting somewhere. I was trying to figure out if you use the computer to get the dog to interact with the abacus or how, and it turns out: no! You can do the factorization with just the computer, just the dog, or just the abacus. In the dog case, he threw a ball until his dog barked 3 times, then 5 times, and claimed this demonstrates the factorization of 15, because 15 is 3*5. The criticism is that, because you choose the number to be factorized, and then do special operations that only work for that particular factorization, all processes that are fine-tuned to produce the correct factors are equally valid, including training your dog to bark a certain number of times.