Fascinating article on the BBC site. Do quantum computers threaten global encryption systems?
Basically it is talking about the dawn of new powerful and super fast computers which will undermine all of our current security, ie encryption. From mobile phone conversations to online card transactions. Currently encryption is secure enough to not be worth while the computation power needed to forcible decrypt a transaction.
But it appears quantum computers would render current encryption obsolete. Although these appear to be a few years away yet, the concerns seem to be how long it takes us average users to upgrade software and move to more secure practices.
According to Dr Tanja Lange, a coding theory and cryptology expert from the Technical University of Eindhoven:
"...it took five to six years to swap out the widely used MD5 data scrambling system once its weakness was demonstrated through a viable attack. Timescales can stretch for systems already used widely in the field, such as those found in cash machines, smart cards and mobile phones."
Interesting times ahead as we become more and more reliant on technology and connected devices.
