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kernal42 t1_j2hk0s2 wrote

To add, more seriously, there are other quantum algorithms that would revolutionize (or disrupt) our lives as we know them. The most obvious example is Shor's algorithm which, as Grover's above, can factorize numbers more efficiently than we know how to with classical computers. This matters because a majority of public-key encryption algorithms rely on the difficulty for factorization of large numbers. If/when someone figures out how to build a large enough quantum computer, all messages sent with this encryption (future or past) will be trivially decrypted. This breaks so much.

NB we should all be using elliptic curve public key cryptography because there's no known quantum algorithm to break it (yet?).

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