Academic Participants:
Claude Crépeau, Michele Mosca, John Watrous.
Partners:
Canadian Security Establishment, Research in Motion.
The need for secure transmission of private information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, exists now and will continue to exist. It is therefore natural to ask whether other problems besides integer factorization, discrete logaritmhs or elliptic curve cryptography can yield cryptosystems that can be performed by classical means but are computationally secure even against quantum computers. The theory of computational complexity can be brought to bear on this question. In particular, the theory gives strong evidence that none of the thousands of known NP-complete problems, which are conjectured to be computationally harder than integer factorization, will suffice.
We will make yearly surveys of the development both in Canada and across the world in the field of quantum information and inform industry members on predicted timescale for the arrival of a variety of quantum technologies.
The understanding of when quantum devices will break today’s cryptosystems is of extreme importance for information security agencies and industries. Michael Brown at Research in Motion has been designated employee who will collaborate with academic partners in this project. The Communication Security Establishment has interests to sponsor research in this area. Entrust and Essentials Economics will utilize the result of our research.