387
Mathematician warns NSA may be weakening next-gen encryption (www.newscientist.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
38 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Mathematician warns NSA may be weakening next-gen encryption::Quantum computers may soon be able to crack encryption methods in use today, so plans are already under way to replace them with new, secure algorithms. Now it seems the US National Security Agency may be undermining that process

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

True encryption does exist, it's just that the encryption key is equally as long as the message itself which shows how impractical it is: if you have a method secure enough to send an encryption key of length X, why not just send the actual message of length X?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's interesting. I've never heard that before. Do you have more information I can read about somewhere?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Is that what they're talking about?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yes

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    But one-time pads aren't impractical like they said?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    One-time pads are impractical because the sender and the target need to meet up beforehand and agree on a code, and no one else should know this code. With modern encryption, this is not necessary. The target can come up with both the encryption and decryption algorithms, and send only the first to the sender publicly.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent