A team of researchers in China has unveiled a technique that — theoretically — could crack the most commonly used types of digital privacy using a rudimentary quantum computer.
The technique worked in a small-scale demonstration, the researchers report, but other experts are sceptical that the procedure could scale up to beat ordinary computers at the task. Still, they warn that the paper, posted late last month on the arXiv repository1, is a reminder of the vulnerability of online privacy.
Quantum computers are known to be a potential threat to current encryption systems, but the technology is still in its infancy and researchers typically estimate that it will be many years until they can be faster than ordinary computers at cracking cryptographic keys.
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