Quantum computers and encryption

  Bibin       January 21, 2020

The security of the internet depends on encryption. It allows your device and far away servers to send and receive data among each other without anyone eavesdropping. Today’s encryption is very good, but a quantum computer can easily break all these encryptions.

Yes, there are some quantum computers exist, but these ones use quantum annealing to solve optimization problems, and are made dedicated for that purpose only, and are not a threat to our online privacy. But when quantum supremacy emerges over the current computing would it be the end of times?

No, it won’t. We can fight quantum with quantum itself.

A solution to this problem is to use two different keys. A private key- the decryption key, only the server knows and public keys- can be used only to encrypt and can be used by anyone to encrypt the data. The decryption key is exclusive to the server and no one except the server knows it. In case if the server wants to send data to your computer, then you will send your unique decryption key in an above-mentioned manner and the server encrypts the data according to your unique key.

All of this encryption and decryption are done using different patterns of numerals and characters, our current computers can’t really execute algorithms to find the encryption method quickly enough before the server changes the encryption method. But a quantum computer can solve these algorithms in no time.

So how do we encrypt data in a quantum computing modern era?

Well, the solution is already in the development stage. Post-quantum cryptography is already in development which makes the process of decryption even more complex so that not even a supercomputer could solve it in a given amount of time.

Since quantum computers use qubits there is already uncertainty in the value of bits. So even if the eavesdropper gets the qubits, they won’t be able to decrypt it. The world around us is evolving quicker than we anticipated years ago. Get ready to live in the modern era with the immense computing abilities of these quantum computers.

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