Google Has Created an Open-Source Framework for Quantum Computing

In a way, we are fortunate that quantum computing is difficult to implement. Quantum computing will make the current technique of data encryption obsolete. Data encryption protects not only military secrets but makes financial transactions secure, and our entire economy depends on it.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/encryptionbusting-quantum-computer-practices-factoring-in-scalable-fiveatom-experiment

Quantum computing does provide a means of data encryption, but the changeover is likely to not be smooth.

The genie is out of the bottle, it's just a matter of time...

Very true. I wonder how seriously the powers that be are taking this threat to encryption. They certainly have been told about it for at least three decades. A few decades ago I would have assumed they were on top of it. Nowadays I doubt it.

But wouldn't this just mean a quantum computer will become involved in encryption and decryption, too?

From what little I understand of today's encryption techniques, there is very little data padding being performed. This may have become an obsolete technique to insert a message within a message nevertheless it is a technique that has been used for centuries.

Right now encryption is easy and decryption with the key is easy. Decryption without the key is very, very hard. When the quantum computer comes along and makes decryption without having the key much easier, we may very well have to throw away everything we are using today and effectively start over.

To have a useful encryption/decryption system which can transfer a lot of data (e.g., online commerce), you basically have to have a standard known algorithm for encryption and a secret key which only the sender and intended recipient can know. The strength is in the key, which can be changed often. It is very efficient because it just involves mathematical computations that dedicated computer hardware can handle very quickly. Whatever we replace this with needs to be both as secure and as efficient as what we have now.

I can foresee a future where there is an arms race between encryption algorithm developers and quantum computer decryption algorithm developers. But ever-changing algorithms are not likely to be efficient.

So very many miss the point of data padding.

OK, let me give you the simple example of a money transfer started by an individual between banks, a payment check. If the encryption technique padded the data stream with five additional bogus transfers, each using their own separate encryption technique then an unauthorized decrypter will only have a one in six chance of intercepting valid data on each transfer. Repeated wrong requests for money transfers will quickly flag an authority so a brute force attempt to identify which transfer is real and which are bogus identifies a scoundrel.

That is but one simple scenario of data padding. A code matrix is even more secure.