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Re:Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shoot... by mmel on Wednesday February 17, 2016 @01:10AM (#11115721)
From my understanding, if you had for example a 128-qbit quantum computer, it would be able to crack any 16 character password in a single operation.
Re:Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shoot... by BinaryIdiot on Wednesday February 17, 2016 @01:19AM (#11115744)
It's not really a single operation though. How would that quantum computer test against an iPhone when each test is a mark against the 10 max test count? An iPhone is still based in standard silicon using bits; you can't exactly pop a process that uses qubits into it and expect it to work.
Re:Apple ordered to bypass auto-erase on San Bernadino shoot... by misterrobot on Wednesday February 17, 2016 @01:22AM (#11115753)
Nope. For general search operations (modeling your 128-bit cipher as a black box) the best we know how to do is Grover's algorithm, which gives you a quadratic speed up. Your 128 bit problem is now a 64 bit problem (which is of course still quite good).