Claiming that they have used Quantum computing to crack military grade encryption. If true I can only imagine that they have been able to do this for some time before China allowed them to publish China's quantum computer scientists crack military-grade encryption Chinese researchers say they have become the first people to use a quantum computer to compromise the type of password-based security system widely employed in critical industries such as defense. Although quantum computers are advancing quickly in many fields, progress on cracking cryptographic security has so far been slow. However, in a peer-reviewed paper published last month in the Chinese Journal of Computers, researchers from Shanghai University wrote they had used a D-Wave Advantage quantum computer to successfully attack three algorithms—Present, Gift-64, and Rectangle—that are critical to the advanced encryption standard (AES) framework used to secure data in the government, military and financial sectors."
They admit later in the article that they actually have not cracked the AES256 but "came closer than anyone else". Strange story to be sure. Also, fairly sure that they are not the first, but rather the first to care to publish this information.
Maybe someone with more knowledge in this area will chime in, but but I think the current standard is AES 256, which is quantum resistant. I’m pretty sure the ones they cracked are older 64 bit encryptions. I’m sure we can do that, too. My basic upstanding is that 64 bit encryptions has 2^64 possible keys ..l which is a large number. 256 bit encryption has 2^256 possible keys…. Which is an insanely large number…Something like that. 512 bit encryption is also available. There is probably some old intel the intercepted they can crack. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the military has been using 516 bit or better encryption for a long time.
It says at the they cracked a 22 bit key… and 2048 and 4096 bit keys are widely used today…. They are not even close to that. That particular key is a string of numbers or characters with 2²² (4,194,304) possible combinations, far fewer than the 2048 and 4096-bit keys widely used today, he noted.
