How Quantum Computers Will Kill Bitcoin and Break the Internet, and What We Can Do About It Dr. Joseph H. Silverman, Professor of Mathematics at Brown Univerisity Host: OSU Mathematics Department
Abstract: What do internet commerce, online banking, and updates to your phone apps have in common? All of them depend on modern public key cryptography for security. You've probably heard of the RSA cryptosystem, which is used by many internet browsers. A
digital signature scheme called ECDSA that is based on elliptic curves is used by many applications, including for example Bitcoin. All of these cryptographic systems are doomed
if/when someone (NSA? Russia? China? the hacker who lives next door?) builds a full-scale operational quantum computer. It hasn't happened yet, as far as we know, but there are vast resources being thrown at the problem, and slow-but-steady progress is being
made. So the search is on for cryptographic algorithms that are secure against quantum computers. In this talk I'll discuss a mix of math and history and prognostication centered around the themes of quantum computers and public key cryptography. No background in either of these subjects will be assumed.
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