“It was just a thought experiment until 1994, when mathematician Peter Shor hit upon a killer app: a quantum algorithm that could find the prime factors of massive numbers. Cryptography, the science of making and breaking codes, relies on a quirk of math, which is that if you multiply two large prime numbers together, it’s devilishly hard to break the answer back down into its constituent parts. You need huge amounts of processing power and lots of time. But if you had a quantum computer and Shor’s algorithm, you could cheat that math. [..] D-Wave pulled in $100 million from investors like Jeff Bezos and In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA.”
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/quantum-computing
Related posts:
Square Fined $507K In Florida For Operating Without A Money Transmitter License
Too Stoned to Drive? There’s an App for That.
80% dip in India gold imports linked to rampant smuggling
GameStops Forced To Start Fingerprinting People Who Trade In Games
Child shoots SWAT officer with his own gun at California ‘Literacy Fair’
Fight the Fed from the Inside
FOIA Documents: DHS Monitored Opposition to ‘See Something, Say Something’ Program
Resist mass cracking by US law enforcement
Brain scans reveal fructose link to overeating
Papers Please: TSA-Style Checkpoints at UK Bus & Train Stations
Entrepreneurs find new hope in fight against regulators
61% of Canadians expect to Convert to Virtual Wallets by 2019
The Best Enemy Money Can Buy
Indiana: Court Overturns Stop For Hole In Tail Light
Non-Traditional Retirements, or DIY Sabbaticals