On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 5:20 PM, Tim Starling <tstarl...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > In a past life, I was a PhD student working on a broad military-funded > project which aimed to break all known asymmetric cryptography schemes > using large, expensive machines known as quantum computers. There will > come a point, maybe even this century, when large-block symmetric > ciphers like the WHIRLPOOL compression function will be the only sort > of security we will have left, unless you don't mind the government > being able to read all your messages. > > Asymmetric ciphers are the only kind of widely-used cipher that have a > known vulnerability which allows cryptanalysis exponentially faster > than brute force, i.e. in polynomial time and space with respect to > the key length. So I think your faith is misplaced.
You must have missed the recent news. At least one obscure asymmetric cipher is provably immune to all known quantum computing attacks: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25629/ -Robert Rohde _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
