A newly discovered trade-off in the way time-keeping devices operate on a fundamental level could set a hard limit on the performance of large-scale quantum computers, according to researchers from the Vienna University of Technology.
whether entropy will have the final say on just how powerful quantum computers can get, only time will tell.
I wonder if this pun was on purpose
Scientist:
That means: Either the clock works quickly or it works precisely – both are not possible at the same time.
Engineer: Explain that to my manager please!
Also, Engineer: Well, what if we accounted for error rate and fixed precision post-processing?
the measure of time is bound by the limits of physics itself.
It feels like a relief.
We already had quantum theory that told us not to hack energy into infinitely small pieces, and we had the uncertainty principle, so we refrained from doing the same to space.
Now we know that time behaves itself somewhat accordingly.
I really hope that there isn’t a cryptographically-relevant quantum computer built in our lifetimes, but we should still assume that there likely will be and accordingly should switch everything to use (hybrid) post-quantum cryptography ASAP.
There probabry already is in NSA basement
Why not? I’ve got a hard drive which I lost the keys to I’d like to recover, and having all the old secrets out in the open would be really interesting.
It isn’t expected that a quantum computer will be able to instantly break symmetric encryption, as is used in full disk encryption. It will give an enormous advantage (halving the number of bits of security) but attacking that will still require a large amount of time and energy. What a CRQC will very quickly break is the asymmetric primitives, as used in TLS, encrypted email and chats, etc.
On the other hand, using default parameters from not so long ago, it is cheaper than you might expect to brute-force your disk passphrase already today without a quantum computer… which is why you should use a stronger key derivation function (in addition to a strong passphrase, of course).
Isn’t that symmetrical encryption? Quantum computers aren’t really that beneficial for symmetrical encryption iirc, due to it being a process that can’t be parallelized very efficiently (and quantum computers are kinda slow per operation).
It looks like this is the pre-print of the paper (“The Impact of Imperfect Timekeeping on Quantum Control”) in the journal the article links: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.10767
Possibly also relevant from some of the same researchers: Fundamental accuracy-resolution trade-off for timekeeping devices
Maybe we need more quantity, so accuracy through the sum of probability.
Maybe we need more quantity
More quantity of time?
For you?
Declined.
You’ll get your 60-70 years like everybody else. :-)
