US government: Help us protect computers from quantum hacking
The US government has begun asking for ideas about how to ensure quantum computers of the future won't be able to crack open secret files as easily as we crack open an egg today.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a request on Wednesday for methods to thwart quantum hacking, a security threat that will become very real if quantum computing can grow beyond today's very early prototypes into something more practical.
"While in the past it was less clear that large quantum computers are a physical possibility, many scientists now believe it to be merely a significant engineering challenge," NIST said at its post-quantum cryptography project site. "Regardless of whether we can estimate the exact time of the arrival of the quantum computing era, we must begin now to prepare our information security systems to be able to resist quantum computing."
