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Hmm, yes, I think I conflated the asymmetric vs symmetric cases. Shor's algorithm is very tasty, but when the real world demonstrations at top research facilities are saying, "yes, we factored 21 into 7x3, but WITH ENTANGLEMENT"[1] it makes me think that scaling to RSA-size prime factors is still a good way off. Listen, the US government is powerful, but building a full scale quantum crypto decoder ring in complete secrecy _decades_ ahead of everyone else? I just don't think so. Maybe I'm a sheep for not wanting to believe the government so powerful and corrupt, but the whole thing sounds like a tin foil fantasy. I don't doubt they would if they could, though. And they've done as much as they can with present day tech: supercomputers, mass data collection, penetration of target systems, exploiting SSL's many weaknesses, tapping undersea lines, and legally strong-arming perceived threats into giving up their encryption keys. I just don't think we need to get science fiction involved. [1] http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nph... See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor's_algorithm |