> Not to disagree with your way of categorizing threat levels, but won't > those Zarbnulaxians have quantum computers which render all of our > current crypto stuff impotent?
No. Quantum computers still obey the mathematical laws of computation as formulated by Turing and Church and others, and obey physical constraints like the Landauer bound, the Margolus-Levitin limit, Bremermann's limit, the Jarzynski equality, and more. If you take all of these principles and plug them together, you get what's called "quantum information theory" -- a framework that lets you put limits on how fast computers can operate and what minimum energy is required to run them. It's pretty easy to show, for instance, that breaking a 256-bit cipher with a Zarbnulaxian quantum computer would release so much heat the earth would be uninhabitable. That's why I'm pretty sure no one on earth is anywhere near close to being able to break it: because if they were, none of us would be alive to talk about it. :) The coolest thing about quantum information theory, though? You can sing it to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song. "Quantum information theory! Shannon is my homeboy! QUANTUM POWER!" > 1) Motivated thirteen year olds. > 2) Lord Voldemort. > 3) Space aliens from Zarbnulax. I changed #2 for you. :) The reason why I never talk about "the [insert-three-letters-here]" is because those conversations deteriorate very quickly. Once you invoke those three letters, many otherwise-rational people turn into unhinged conspiracy theorists who buy even the most absurd claims. As an example, over on the Enigmail list there was someone who sincerely believed that a site parodying the [insert-three-letters-here], which *explicitly said it was a parody*, was in reality the real deal and everything it said should be believed. Once you start using those letters the overall quality of the conversation gets degraded. I prefer to avoid that. _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
