Re: [TLS] Before we PQC... Re: PQC key exchange sizes

[Rob Sayre <[e-mail]>]

On Sat, Aug 6, 2022 at 8:29 AM Benjamin Kaduk <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Current hardware relies on either being very cold, very isolated from the
> surroundings,
> or both, to avoid unwanted coupling between qbits and the outside world
> that causes
> decoherence.  Achieving the physics in a physical engineering matter is
> inherently finicky,
> though you can build error-correction and robustness on top of it that
> helps.
>

Yes, the ones I've seen pretty much looked like this isolated and
super-cooled one:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-quantum-computing-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-strange-world-of-quantum-computers/

I was offered a job, several years ago, to write APIs for something
resembling the pictured quantum computer. I didn't take it, but it wasn't
top-secret government work or anything like that. As part of the sell, they
of course gave me a tour of the quantum data center (it was neat).

It's playing at the margins between theory and engineering practicality, so
> the
> target is going to change over time.  I'm not surprised that this comes
> across
> as having some level of imprecision.
>

The idea seems to have unstated assumptions about how far along quantum
computers are, and how useful "quantum annoyance" is as a deterrent. I'm
not insisting that it's wrong to focus on, but I do find there to be some
missing reasoning there.

thanks,
Rob