4 ms·
Just an obligatory reminder that as cool as quantum cryptography is, it's very unlikely that anyone (including NSA) can break today's run-of-the-mill classical
by comex 13y ago
Just an obligatory reminder that as cool as quantum cryptography is, it's very unlikely that anyone (including NSA) can break today's run-of-the-mill classical encryption, and an XOR cipher plus a hardware RNG (such as, unless you're somewhat paranoid, the ones built into modern Intel processors) is essentially completely unbreakable.
- draz 13y agotrue, unbreakable now, but probably breakable in a few years.... You store whatever SIGINT you pick up now, and understand it in a few years. A lot of it will still be valuable in 5,10, 15 years
- comex 13y agoTrue. But (a) These quantum links are physical cables that have to be laid between sites. If you lay your own normal cable rather than using the Internet, you probably won't be intercepted either. Or... (b) While shuttling around massive XOR pads on hard drives is probably too annoying for most individuals, it's quite feasible for the kinds of organizations that could buy this stuff and a whole lot cheaper, unless they have enormous quantities of data to transfer; though the scheme can then be broken by passively copying the pad rather than continuously actively subverting the quantum link, I'm not sure this makes much difference in practice.