Lifeboat Foundation

A new study shows that quantum technology will catch up with today’s encryption standards much sooner than expected. That should worry anybody who needs to store data securely for 25 years or so.

In conventional holography a photographic film can record the interference pattern of monochromatic light scattered from the object to be imaged with a reference beam of un-scattered light. Scientists can then illuminate the developed image with a replica of the reference beam to create a virtual image of the original object. Holography was originally proposed by the physicist Dennis Gabor in 1948 to improve the resolution of an electron microscope, demonstrated using light optics. A hologram can be formed by capturing the phase and amplitude distribution of a signal by superimposing it with a known reference. The original concept was followed by holography with electrons, and after the invention of lasers optical holography became a popular technique for 3D imaging macroscopic objects, information encryption and microscopy imaging.

However, extending holograms to the ultrafast domain currently remains a challenge with electrons, although developing the technique would allow the highest possible combined spatiotemporal resolution for advanced imaging applications in condensed matter physics. In a recent study now published in Science Advances, Ivan Madan and an interdisciplinary research team in the departments of Ultrafast Microscopy and Electron Scattering, Physics, Science and Technology in Switzerland, the U.K. and Spain, detailed the development of a hologram using local electromagnetic fields. The scientists obtained the electromagnetic holograms with combined attosecond/nanometer resolution in an ultrafast transmission electron microscope (UEM).

In the new method, the scientists relied on electromagnetic fields to split an electron wave function in a quantum coherent superposition of different energy states. The technique deviated from the conventional method, where the signal of interest and reference spatially separated and recombined to reconstruct the amplitude and phase of a signal of interest to subsequently form a hologram. The principle can be extended to any kind of detection configuration involving a periodic signal capable of undergoing interference, including sound waves, X-rays or femtosecond pulse waveforms.

Continue reading “Holographic imaging of electromagnetic fields using electron-light quantum interference” »

A technology behind 3D holograms might encrypt data for quantum computers.

Checking out a stack of books from the library is as simple as searching the library’s catalog and using unique call numbers to pull each book from their shelf locations. Using a similar principle, scientists at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory—are teaming with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to create a first-of-its-kind automated system to catalog atomically thin two-dimensional (2-D) materials and stack them into layered structures. Called the Quantum Material Press, or QPress, this system will accelerate the discovery of next-generation materials for the emerging field of quantum information science (QIS).

Structures obtained by stacking single atomic layers (“flakes”) peeled from different parent bulk crystals are of interest because of the exotic electronic, magnetic, and optical properties that emerge at such small (quantum) size scales. However, flake exfoliation is currently a manual process that yields a variety of flake sizes, shapes, orientations, and number of layers. Scientists use optical microscopes at high magnification to manually hunt through thousands of flakes to find the desired ones, and this search can sometimes take days or even a week, and is prone to human error.

Once high-quality 2-D flakes from different crystals have been located and their properties characterized, they can be assembled in the desired order to create the layered structures. Stacking is very time-intensive, often taking longer than a month to assemble a single layered structure. To determine whether the generated structures are optimal for QIS applications—ranging from computing and encryption to sensing and communications—scientists then need to characterize the structures’ properties.

Continue reading “Building a printing press for new quantum materials” »

With new advances in technology it all comes down to simple factoring. Classical factoring systems are outdated where some problems would take 80 billion years to solve but with new technologies such as the dwave 2 it can bring us up to speed to do the same problems in about 2 seconds. Shores algorithm shows us also we can hack anything with it simply would need the technology and code simple enough and strong enough. Basically with new infrastructure we can do like jason…

RSA is the standard cryptographic algorithm on the Internet. The method is publicly known but extremely hard to crack. It uses two keys for encryption. The public key is open and the client uses it to encrypt a random session key. Anyone intercepts the encrypted key must use the second key, the private key, to decrypt it. Otherwise, it is just garbage. Once the session key is decrypted, the server uses it to encrypt and decrypt further messages with a faster algorithm. So, as long as we keep the private key safe, the communication will be secure.

RSA encryption is based on a simple idea: prime factorization. Multiplying two prime numbers is pretty simple, but it is hard to factorize its result. For example, what are the factors for 507,906,452,803? Answer: 566,557 × 896,479.

Continue reading “QC — Cracking RSA with Shor’s Algorithm” »

Quantum computers could help explain some of the most fundamental mysteries in the universe and upend everything from finance to encryption – if only someone could get them to work.

Mice with vision enhanced by nanotechnology were able to see infrared light as well as visible light, reports a study published February 28 in the journal Cell. A single injection of nanoparticles in the mice’s eyes bestowed infrared vision for up to 10 weeks with minimal side effects, allowing them to see infrared light even during the day and with enough specificity to distinguish between different shapes. These findings could lead to advancements in human infrared vision technologies, including potential applications in civilian encryption, security, and military operations.

Injectable photoreceptor-binding nanoparticles with the ability to convert photons from low-energy to high-energy forms allow mice to develop infrared vision without compromising their normal vision and associated behavioral responses.

Circa 2018

The experimental mastery of complex quantum systems is required for future technologies like quantum computers and quantum encryption. Scientists from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences have broken new ground. They sought to use more complex quantum systems than two-dimensionally entangled qubits and thus can increase the information capacity with the same number of particles. The developed methods and technologies could in the future enable the teleportation of complex quantum systems. The results of their work, “Experimental Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger entanglement beyond qubits,” is published recently in the renowned journal Nature Photonics.

Similar to bits in conventional computers, qubits are the smallest unit of information in quantum systems. Big companies like Google and IBM are competing with research institutes around the world to produce an increasing number of entangled qubits and develop a functioning quantum computer. But a research group at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences is pursuing a new path to increase the information capacity of complex quantum systems.

Continue reading “One step closer to complex quantum teleportation” »

US$190 million in investors’ money has been locked since Cotten died in December. His widow says she doesn’t know his passwords.

About US$190 million in cryptocurrency has been locked away in a online black hole after the founder of a currency exchange died, apparently taking his encrypted access to their money with him.

Investors in QuadrigaCX, Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, have been unable to access their funds since its founder, Gerald Cotten, died last year.

Continue reading “Canadian cryptocurrency fund boss Gerald Cotten died – and US$190million of his investors’ money may be encrypted forever” »