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Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware

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429 points AbhishekParmar | 3 comments | 22 Oct 25 15:16 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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andy_ppp ◴[22 Oct 25 23:11 UTC] No.45676328[source]▶
I would be quite worried about advances in quantum computers if I had any Bitcoin after watching this DEFCON talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkVYJx1iLNs
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vayup ◴[22 Oct 25 23:47 UTC] No.45676591[source]▶
Quantum is a known threat. There is enough time to fix it. Folks are working on the fixes.

Cryptocurrencies would be the last thing I worry about w.r.t Quantum crypto attacks. Everything would be broken. Think banks, brokerage accounts, email, text messages - everything.

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1. snailmailman ◴[23 Oct 25 00:40 UTC] No.45676916[source]▶
The world has already migrated through so many past now-insecure cryptography setups. If quantum computers start breaking things, people will transition to more secure systems.

In HTTPS for example, the server and client must agree on how to communicate, and we’ve already had to deprecate older, now-insecure cryptography standards. More options get added, and old ones will have to be deprecated. This isn’t a new thing, just maybe some cryptographic schemes will get rotated out earlier than expected.

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2. Barrin92 ◴[23 Oct 25 01:50 UTC] No.45677309[source]▶
> If quantum computers start breaking things, people will transition to more secure systems.

that's not really the issue, the real interesting part is existing encrypted information that three letter agencies likely have dutifully stored in a vault and that's going to become readable. A lot of that communication was made under the assumption that it's secure.

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3. hoppp ◴[23 Oct 25 02:37 UTC] No.45677585[source]▶
Yeah, all the encrypted messages collected when illegal markets got seized will be decrypted. Many of them uses RSA 2048 so by 2030 its gonna be broken according to the timelines.

Its actually something we will notice. Arrests will be announced.