Re: IBM Uses Keystroke-monitoring in NJ Mob Case (was Re:
Petro wrote: R. A. Hettinga wrote: [...] As I've written, the FBI should run quality house cleaning services in large cities. How do you know they don't? In every office or factory I've ever been in, including government ones where we kept paper copies of tax returns (yes folks, I have worked for the Inland Revenue) there are cleaners. They seem to come in 3 kinds - middle-aged black women, African students working their way through college, and people with vaguely asiatic features who sound as if they are speaking Portuguese. (Sometimes you get a few white students working their way through college but they are more likely to get jobs in bars) If I wanted to hire spies or assassins, I'd go for the middle-aged black women. Preferably short and dumpy and shabbily dressed. Someone who looks like a granny. They can go anywhere, no-one ever stops them or asks them who they are. An invisible woman to match Chesterton's Invisible Man. Ken
Re: Knowing your customer
"R. A. Hettinga" wrote: [...] I am not, of course, a banking lawyer, but I certainly hang out with enough of those folks these days, I've certainly had enough of this stuff shoved into my head over the years, and, I expect that to get a bank account without a Social Security number in most states of the US, you probably need to prove that you are indeed a foreign national, *and* provide a valid passport as proof of same, and that, frankly, the passport number would be used *somewhere* as a proxy for SSN where possible. I manage to pay some US income tax (on some share dividends) without ever having a US SSN. They seem happy not to identify you when they are taking your money. Funny that :-) [...] Modern nation-states have bound up so much of their regulatory and tax structure into book entry settlement, that it is very hard, more probably impossible, to get a bank account in this country without being completely, positively, whatever that means, identified -- biometrically identified, if it were cheap enough, and certainly with a state-issued identification number. UK domestic bank accounts usually require some proof of id, though not our equivalent of your SSN (The "national insurance number" - I suspect most people don't know theirs, but it is printed on every payslip probably hard to keep secret). There is no official government id in UK, except for passports which of course many people have not got. Banks are very keen on proof of address, they ask to see "official" letters (like the gas bill - or an account from another bank) addressed to your name at your house. In fact it is all but impossible to get a bank account without a permanent address. As these days many employers only pay wages through bank accounts... well, that's just one of the reasons the number of homeless people in London went steadily up during the 1980s early 1990s when employment and prosperity were increasing the value of welfare benefits was falling. [...] Ken
Re: Jim Bell arrested, documents online
Eric Cordian wrote: Alan Olsen wrote: [...snip...] He seemed to think that the only target of this would be the government. I think this is a reasonable observation. You really have to be acting under color of authority to strongly alienate enough people, who have so litle recourse against you, that millions will bet a buck on your continued good health in the hopes that an anonymous assassin will prove them wrong and collect the pot. I'm not so sure about this. I've taken part in political demonstrations against private companies I've worked in offices that were picketed or invaded by demonstrators. I've also worked in a building whose windows were broken by a bomb in the street. The bomb wasn't directed against us, but against another business on the other side of the street - the Harrods department store. On another occasion Harrods was bombed in protest against their selling fur. Farms that breed animals for experiments have been attacked and there have been attempts on the lives of the managers and owners of such places. [...snip...] I think that there are more people out there who would go after Bill Gates or John Tesh than there would for various little known public officials. (This could be a case where fame could have an even bigger downside. About six feet down.) Oh come now. You have real recourse against Bill Gates and John Tesh short of killing them. Bill Gates and John Tesh don't claim they have God's authority to kill you if you don't do what they say. They don't order your house raided, and your children terrorized at gunpoint. They don't force you to choose between going to prison or going to war. They don't accuse you of treason and try to have you executed if you tell their dirty little secrets. Gates Tesh may not do that but there are companies that have done - and more importantly there are people who think that companies do behave like that even if they don't. Think of Shell in Nigeria. Or Harlan County, Kentucky. One of the things about AP is, if it works, millions of people with untrue ideas can still get things done. Anyway, the distinction between business and politics is less clear than you make out - or seems less clear to many people in countries outside America. In most places the government is in the pockets of the people with the money - and in most places presidents and governors are quick to join the ranks of the men with the money. Citizens of countries that have experienced the rule of people like, say, Marcos, or Suharto, or Kenyatta, aren't likely to believe that your American companies aren't agents of the US government, and they aren't likely to believe that your American politicians don't have interests in the companies. What happens if millions of people outside the US are pissed off (maybe for no good reason) with the corporate leadership of Exxon or Coca-Cola or Microsoft or MacDonalds? Maybe if only because they are pissed off with the USA and those companies stand for the USA in the minds of others ( however wonderful your USA is someone, somewhere is going to be pissed off with it). The only American politician millions of people have heard of is the President (who is presumably reasonably well-defended). Representatives of big companies make much more likely targets for non-Americans. Anyway, big companies make big targets for some kinds of revolutionaries, as do big fortunes. Some of them like killing the rich. This already happens. Not a lot, but it happens. AP might make it more common. Ken
Re: Florida Vote
Posted without permission. You've probably seen it before it probably isn't funny but I'd been drinking beer when i saw it I laughed: NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE To the citizens of the United States of America, In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The rt. hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect: 1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". 2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. 3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. 4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. 5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through. 6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005. 7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "shit". 8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day". 9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. 10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy. Thank you for your cooperation.
Re: Bush Cousin Made Florida Vote Call For Fox News
No User posted: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14686-2000Nov14.html By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, November 14, 2000; Page C1 In yet another bizarre twist to an already surreal campaign, the head of Fox News's Election Night decision desk - who recommended calling Florida, and the election, for George W. Bush - turns out to be Bush's first cousin. [...lots of other stuff on same subject snipped...] Happy hunting grounds for conspiracy theorists. GW just scrapes though in Jeb's state with the help of James Ellis (related to the Bushes but presumably unrelated to the British cryptographer, or the Irish actor :-) Bush pere was once CIA supremo. And then the Florida SoS, presumably at least with the knowledge of Jeb Bush, if not his active encouragement, tries to stop the hand-counting. And Ellis is an employee of Rupert Murdoch of all the dodgy people. There is a problem with the voting mechanism in some counties, to most people the obvious thing to do is to have a look at the ballots and see what the problem is. If the Republicans appear to be trying to stop that it makes them look dishonest, even if they aren't being. Now there may be all sorts of good reasons for that which are nothing to do with trying to get elected. But from the point of view of just about anyone else in the world other than an American and Republican voter, it seems like a cover-up. Maybe it will be like the 1994 Mull of Kintyre aircrash. (Chinook helicopter with over 25 intelligence chiefs from Northern Ireland on a semi-official flight to a social event - crashes wipes out entire top ranks of UK forces in Northern Ireland - the peace talks start the next day - *and* it was flying near its home base of Macrahanish which the UFOnuts associate with Area 51, Black Helicopters, Aurora, T3 the like) It was obviously a conspiracy that no-body will believe it wasn't, even though it probably really was an accident... This is like that. If the Republicans persist in trying to stop the hand counts no-one will believe they aren't trying to cover something up, even if they are doing it for honourable reasons. The final outcome may depend on brotherly love. In its absence there might be a strong temptation for Jeb Bush to force through the hand-counts, let the Florida EC vote fall to Gore, and come back as a candidate himself in 4 years time, getting the sympathy vote... Critics say the Ellis connection will reinforce Fox's reputation as a conservative network whose anchors include Tony Snow, a former Bush White House staffer, and such commentators as Newt Gingrich. Fox maintains it merely provides a balanced alternative to the liberal networks. But, says Rosenstiel, "the marketing slogan 'We report, you decide' is obliterated by the fact that one candidate's first cousin is actually deciding, and then they report." If Fox is run by Murdoch that has to be more than a reputation. You would not like to see how much us lefties still hate Murdoch. After all these years I still won't buy his UK newspapers. Not that you miss much by not reading them. Ken
Re: The Ant and the Grasshopper, Election Version
Mac Norton wrote: And then the locusts descend. And they feed. Because the ants and the grasshoppers never could get their shit together. 0/10 for entomology. Locusts *are* grasshoppers :-) Ken
Re: Close Elections and Causality
Kevin Elliott wrote: At 12:38 + 11/10/00, Ken Brown wrote: But are there no rules in Florida allowing for a re-vote? If there really are 19,000 spoiled papers from once county, that sounds "massive" to me. It may not be fraud - the fools who designed the papers probably thought they were doing right - but it has the same effect. This is why people who don't know statistics should not be allowed to think... By no means is that number, by itself, of any significance whatsoever. It is if I have a vague idea how big a county is. If a state the size of Florida has 60-ish counties I would be surprised if many of them had populations much over about million or less than 100,000 if the counties were reasonably randomly populated (if there has been an attempt to equalise the populations then even more so) Also, from years of political hackery hanging around in elections, I know that over here spoiled votes are rarely as much as 1% of the total. So we have 3 possibilities - Palm Beach County is unusually large, Floridan voters are stupider than voters in London, or something went unusually wrong in that county. Assuming the county is the one described at http://www.co.palm-beach.fl.us then it is quite large. You'd have to compare it to other counties to see if it was worse. How many got canceled last election- one number I heard said 14,000. If so then 19,000 is about what one would expect considering increased voter turnout and normal statistical fluctuations. Still could be a sign that something is badly wrong. Just because the last election was a shambles there as well doesn't meant that this one should have been. If there is a problem it ought to be fixed. More importantly, the ballot was approved by both parties before the election took place. If they didn't bitch then they don't have the right to bitch now. Just goes to show that officials of more than one political party can be stupid (does that surprise you?) The citizens of Palm Beach (or wherever) have, under you constitution the laws of Florida a right to vote in fair elections. (Over here in Britain we always sort of assume that US elections are corrupt anyway, especially in the South :-) Obviously, the only reason this is being talked about at all by anyone more than thirty miles from Lake Okechobee is because of the close-run Presidential election. That is what brought the (possibly) messy state of the election in Florida to light. Some Floridans wanted recounts, or possibly even recounts. The chances are they wouldn't have bothered if it hadn't been for the presidential problem. Are you saying that they mustn't use their rights under local, Floridan, law because it delays the appointment of the electoral college and further confuses the presidential race? That local law and due process be suspended for the convenience of the Federal system? Ken
Re: Late-postmarked ballots from ZOG-occupied Palestine
Tim May wrote: The solution has been obvious for a long time: absentee ballots must be received by the close of business on the polling day. Those who know they are going to be out of their voting area must mail their ballots in time to arrive. This eliminates this particular hazard. When I was listening to the news last Tuesday it took me a while to realise that this *wasn;'t* the case. It seems so sort of obvious you'd think it would have been adopted years ago. Back in the 1940s and 50s bookies in England used to take bets on photofinishes. One man made himself a fortune, by always standing exactly on the finish line waiting for a photo-finishs in which the horse farthest from him had crossed the line first. The bookies stopped taking his bets. In UK (for what its worth) postal votes have to be in by a fixed date that is up to a week before the election day. They are opened in the presence of the candidate (or their agent), counted, then the returning officer and the agents agree on the total, fill in a form, sign it, and the ballot papers and the forms are sealed (hey, a protocol! Almost on-topic!) Spoiled ballots are also handled by the candidates agents on the night of the election. They stand across the tables from where the votes are being counted (hand counting of course, none of your new-fangled stuff) and are allowed to look but not touch. Any dubious papers are discussed. Usually you manage to agree on how to count them. Ken
Re: Close Elections and Causality
Tim May wrote: * In a close, nearly-tied election, should a re-vote be allowed? * In a close sports game, should all potential "fork" decisions (referee calls) be reviewed and the game rolled-back...even hours later? Should critical plays be re-played the next day? * Did the woman who voted at 9 a.m. but whose vote was counted at the _end_ of the final count, and whose vote seemingly "caused" one candidate to win and another to lose _actually_ "cause" the outcome? * Did Oregon, for example, whose votes were counted last and whose votes put a candidate over the top actually "cause" the outcome? [... quite a lot snipped...] This is almost an argument *for* re-running the election. If the Palm Beach (or whatever the place is called) voters tip the balance to either Gore or Bush can they in any real sense be said to have decided the election? Their votes still won't count for any more than any other citizen of Florida. ISTM that the real reason for avoiding a re-vote is is the practicality of it. All that money, media attention and lawyerage will be focussed on a small group of people, as Tim points out later: Deciding that one of those states or one of those counties was "decisive" (caused the outcome, was a hinge point, etc.) and thus should be given a chance to hold a new vote, has numerous implications for fairness: * instead of being just another voter, just another voting site, the N residents will now have the weight of the entire election outcome on their shoulders * intensive lobbying for votes will occur, far beyond the original lobbying (when I say "far beyond" I mean by several orders of magnitude...it might be that all residents would have to be sequestered from the time of the announcement of a re-vote to the actual re-vote just to ensure that bribes are not offered, etc.). [...more snips...] Rules are rules. The time to object is beforehand. Unless extremely serious voter fraud is found, results should not be thrown out when those results are in accordance with the rules. In no cases should a re-vote of a "hinge county" be allowed for less-than-massive-fraud reasons. But are there no rules in Florida allowing for a re-vote? If there really are 19,000 spoiled papers from once county, that sounds "massive" to me. It may not be fraud - the fools who designed the papers probably thought they were doing right - but it has the same effect. And, of course, Palm County will _not_ be given a second chance to vote in this election. I guarantee it. When did they make you a Florida judge? (About the same time they made me an expert on the laws of a state I've never visited know nothing about I suppose...) Ken Brown (unfortunately a fan of elections and constitutions)
Re: California bars free speech of those cutting deals on votes
The voters will be able to suss it out without a website. In the last UK general election about a couple of million voters very precisely voted either for whichever of the Labour (who won overall) or Liberal (came 3rd) candidates was most likely to beat the Conservatives (who were thereby hammered by the 1st-past-the post system). The Liberals (as usual) were bleating about having a chance to get into power, but in practice (as usual) they were used as a protest vote by those who couldn't bring themselves to vote Tory. The same has, I suspect, been true of 3rd parties in the USA. You can't judge their strength by their vote because many of their votes because they are nearly always a vote *against* whoever seems most likely to get in. And because genuine supporters, knowing their preferred candidate won't get in, may pragmatically vote for the contender they consider least damaging. As Tim pointed out the other day. We're not doing this for fun. If there is a chance of getting someone in who will do less real damage, vote for them. In the absence of revolution, amelioration at least ameliorates. But on the bright side - even without websites or any other visible vote-trading, enough people knew who to vote for to get the Tories out. The electorate *were* paying attention. In Brighton (my home town) all 3 seats went Labour because people knew they were the strongest non-Tory party (even Hove which had long had a reputation as one of the most conservative places in the country) - the Liberal vote hardly existed. In Lewes, only 8 miles away, enough people voted Liberal to get the Tories out the Labour vote collapsed. Of course most oy you Americans probably won't think that electing a Labour government is a good idea - but that isn't the immediate point. The pleasantly surprising thing is that so many people were aware of the numbers and cast their vote accordingly. They *weren't* just listening to the TV or the parties. They thought about it and cast their vote intelligently in what they saw to be their own interests (in this case revenge on the party of Margaret Thatcher, easily the most hated British politician of the 20th century). Ken Tim May wrote: California has "shut down"--through a threatening letter--a site which matches up folks who are willing to say they'll vote for Nader in states where Gore is sure to win if other folks who had hoped to vote for Nader will instead vote for Gore in order to help him in swing states. (Sounds complicated. But it's really simple. "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine." No money is changing hands, no actual "ballots" are being traded.) The Web site doing this is/was: http://www.voteswap2000.com/ The article on California's actions is: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001031/wr/campaign_traders_dc_1.html BTW, I just "expressed my preference" at the site: http://Winchell.com/NaderTrader/default.asp No doubt I am even now more of a speech criminal. I wonder if a raid is imminent. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Mootos
There has recently been some discussion on UKcrypto of a hypothesised eavesdropping-safe boot CD containing OS necessary software to get encrypted IP links to a (predetermined?) safe site. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.fairbrother/ The "won't be able to import files" and so on sounds familiar from a long time ago. Isn't this the case in the maximum implementation of the old coloured book standards? (Too boring to look it up) Also I'd like to see a "multi-platform CD that users boot from" that would work with OC, Mac, Sun etc... Ken first few lines: Moot! is a cryptosuite designed to avoid RIPA pt3 and govermnent access to keys/plaintext in general. All storage is in an offshore data haven. Moot! is designed to consist of a multi-platform CD that users boot from. It is designed to be hard to emulate in software. It's also open-source, free if I can get enough help, or at least cheap, and I plan to publish the security designs and ask for comments and suggestions (and help!) before actually implementing anything. It works sort of like this: in the box (on the CD): w/p, spreadsheet, database s/w etc: crypto package: comms s/w eg TCP/IP, modem and ethernet drivers etc.: minimal operating system: no local storage
Re: New OLD cryptograph patent for NSA
I guess they wanted the patent for recognition. A sort of pat on the back. The government grants patents so I suppose they can grant themselves as many as they like if it makes them feel good. Rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Whit Diffie gave an interesting talk about intellectual priority and scholarly recognition at UCL over here a couple of years ago - of course the spooks don't get any outside their own fences, the poor little lambs... Ken Brown Tim May wrote: At 2:23 PM +0300 10/12/00, Sampo A Syreeni wrote: On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Bo Elkjaer wrote: Note that the patent-application was filed in 1936. Obviously they were interested in keeping any info relating to the invention confidential. But theres no need for that anymore, given that the technology in the patent is completely obsolete by now. So... How do you defend such a patent? How does this sort of thing mesh with the idea of patents as a reward for disclosure? There is no defense of such patents. You are correct that patents are intended to encourage disclosure and yet protect inventors for some limited period. (Not all of us even support patents. Namely, ideas are just ideas. Making it illegal for some to use ideas, which they may well have thought of on their own, is thought control. In a crypto anarchic society, patents will mostly be moot.) Granting patents to work done in the 1930s is bizarre. --Tim May
Re: Re: Internet bearer cryptography patent trusts (was Re: Chaumian cashredux)
Dan Geer wrote: Wearing my "inventor" badge, I asked nearly every member of nearly every panel what they they had to say about intellectual property protection. This means that I asked the same question to samples of size 4 of each of lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs, noveau riche cash-outs, venture capitalists, business strategy folk and assorted greybeards. Unanimously, the answer was "Intellectual property protection is vital. Do it right, do it early, don't scrimp. In a dog eat dog world, it is all you've really got." With one exception. Every single one of the VCs there, and similarly every single one of the VCs I've talked to corroboratingly since, said that IP protection is so pointless they don't even value it when sizing a deal. Why? Because in the Internet sector, it is winner take all. Win it all, and your IP position does not matter. Might that not just be because the VCs have a different interest than the inventors? Also, for the VC, the inventors patent holders are (in a sense) sitting tenants. They would prefer to get hold of the property unencumbered. OTOH, the inventor (who may well be distrustful or ignorant of business) wants to be sure that whoever ends up running the show remembers to pay them Of course the lawyers will go for patenting because they get paid more the more paperwork there is. Ken
Asymmetrical spam again
Asymmetric wrote: That the list be changed so that un_registered email addresses cannot send messages to it? This spam is getting ridiculous. [...snip...] The benefits of having the list open to u_nsubscribed postings seem far outweighed by the cost in time spent by everyone filtering messages and server resources that could be better spent running dnetc if nothing else ;). It's just auxiliary that I've never seen an anonymous post to the list in the past when I subscribed, nor more recently since I resubscribed. Undoubtedly some smartass will send an anonymous message to the list now just to say "see!" [...snip...] Listen carefully. I will say this only once. Well, twice actually because the first attempt at posting this bounced. All you say is true. Moderated and closed lists are good ideas. Such good ideas that nearly every mailing list in the world is closed and moderated. But maybe, just maybe, there is some reason for an open, unmoderated list. Just one in the whole world. This is that list. Or maybe there are some loonies out there who for motives of their own (that you might or might not approve of, as if they cared), wish to read an open, unmoderated list. These are those loonies. If you don't like it, or them, you can join another list. No-ones stopping you. You can even make your own list if you want. It's like someone visits a farm and complains that the place is full of animals... or a farmer visits the city and moans about all those houses... What about just creating another list (closed-posting) and then just allowing people to choose which to subscribe to? Obviously, the open-posting list would be subscribed to the closed posting list, but not the other way around.. so at the risk of missing the massively important anonymous message that has yet to be sent, I could eliminate some of this spam? Another good suggestion. So good I think someone made it back in about 1995 (or was it 1997?). Feel free to create such a list yourself, if you want another one. Ken
Re: Re: Quantum Cryptography and resistance
lcs Mixmaster Remailer wrote: Quantum cryptography will be of little practical value for the average person. That's because you need to get photons unchanged from one person to the other. This requires either a line of sight or a fiber optic cable, neither of which is likely to be available. If they became useful, fibre optic cables would be made available. It is probably the future (I know, I know, we've been saying this for 20 years it hasn't happened yet) but if one fibre has a significant fraction of the the bandwidth of the entire sky it has to be the way to go. Anyway - who says radio isn't transmitted by photons? Satellites communicate by line-of-sight, both with each other and with endpoints. Laser comms in space? It explains the Fermi paradox anyway - they are out there but they live on iceballs in the Kuiper and Oort and communicate by store-and-forward through tight-beam lasers using quantum cryptography techniques to error-check the messages over those distances... so we never get to intercept their comms. Travel from star to star by a long series of short hops from chilly blob to chilly blob. I have seen the future of interstellar communications and it looks a lot like Usenet That's what happened to Sr A***c you know - when his stuff got out to Alpha Centauri the aliens came and got him. Quantum computers allow fast search for symmetric ciphers like DES or AES. The effect is essentially to halve the key size. A 128 bit key attacked by a QC becomes as strong as a 64 bit key would be attacked by conventional computers. The new AES standard provides for 256 bit keys. These will still provide 128 bits of strength against quantum computers, making them practically invulnerable. So QCs will provide no significant problems against symmetric ciphers once AES is in widespread use. Quantum computers also allow fast factoring and finding discrete logs, essentially destroying the principles behind the most widely used public key systems. This uses Shor's algorithm, which works by finding the period of a sequence. The recent IBM announcement was apparently an implementation of just this algorithm for a 5 bit QC. Hence it will be necessary to scale up the QC from 5 bits to 1024 bits or more. This will take years of work and no one knows if it will be possible. If it happens, people will have to switch to keys larger than the largest quantum computers, which will probably be a losing battle; or they will have to use the more obscure, less efficient and possibly less secure public key alternatives. No doubt if large QCs appear on the horizon we will see considerably more cryptographic effort put into developing and establishing the security of alternative methods for PKC. Or we just get a lot of people who are good at sums to work on non-paralellisable algorithms, where the output of stage n must be known before n+1 can be set up. The opposite of what they are doing now of course. Though who knows what the NSA are up to - maybe if they believe all this QC stuff they have been paying people for years to work out deliberately inefficient, unoptimisable algorithms. It's a living. Ken ( not the College)
