*Quantum Computing* expert Bill Munro

From: jsavard@ecn.ab.ca
Date: 04/06/03 

From: jsavard@ecn.ab.ca ()
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2003 01:49:25 GMT

... and his colleague Keith Harrison were billed as encryption experts in
a recent New Scientist item which I just saw today.

In any event, these researchers called on scientists around the world to
develop ciphers resistant to attack by quantum computers.

How do I know that Dr. Munro is a quantum computing expert? Well, I was
going to drop him an E-mail based on the article, whose limited details
had caused me to think that the two scientists named, in addition to
calling for other researchers to find such ciphers, were working on the
problem themselves.

Essentially, of course, as readers of my posts and website will no doubt
realize, I would have expressed _extreme_ pessimism concerning the
possibility of developing *public-key ciphers* that would be resistant to
the advent of powerful quantum computers, since I am even untrustful of
their security absent that development, since advances in mathematics
could very easily vitiate pretty well all public-key ciphers.

On the other hand, I don't think we all have to go back to the one-time
pad. Symmetric-key ciphers can be made as elaborate as you like, and you
can use as big a key as you like. Thus, while the quantum computer is a
sufficiently disquieting development that one would want to use
symmetric-key ciphers far more elaborate than are felt necessary today, it
doesn't seem that problem is insuperable.

But, of course, cobbling together a big and complicated cipher is so easy
almost anyone can do it (admittedly, it takes real experts to avoid making
bad mistakes... but it also takes real experts to find the mistakes as
well). And, of course, my web site is a case in point...

John Savard

Relevant Pages

  • Re: *Quantum Computing* expert Bill Munro
    ... these researchers called on scientists around the world to ... >develop ciphers resistant to attack by quantum computers. ... I presume they're searching for public-key cryptosystems. ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: The strongest alghorim?
    ... One of the easiest ciphers to code in VB, is RC4. ... mistakes which can be exploited to crack your cipher. ... Eg. for stream ciphers such as RC4, ...
    (microsoft.public.access.security)