Here’s the Paper No One Read Before Declaring the Demise of Modern Cryptography

upstart writes:

The advance was incremental at best. So why did so many think it was a breakthrough?

There's little doubt that some of the most important pillars of modern cryptography will tumble spectacularly once quantum computing, now in its infancy, matures sufficiently. Some experts say that could be in the next couple decades. Others say it could take longer. No one knows.

The uncertainty leaves a giant vacuum that can be filled with alarmist pronouncements that the world is close to seeing the downfall of cryptography as we know it. The false pronouncements can take on a life of their own as they're repeated by marketers looking to peddle post-quantum cryptography snake oil and journalists tricked into thinking the findings are real. And a new episode of exaggerated research has been playing out for the past few weeks.

The last time the PQC-short for post-quantum cryptography-hype train gained this much traction was in early 2023, when scientists presented findings that claimed, at long last, to put the quantum-enabled cracking of the widely used RSA encryption scheme within reach. The claims were repeated over and over, just as claims about research released in September have for the past three weeks.

A few weeks after the 2023 paper came to light, a more mundane truth emerged that had escaped the notice of all those claiming the research represented the imminent demise of RSA-the research relied on Schnorr's algorithm (not to be confused with Shor's algorithm). The algorithm, based on 2021 analysis of cryptographer Peter Schnorr, had been widely debunked two years earlier. Specifically, critics said, there was no evidence supporting the authors' claims of Schnorr's algorithm achieving polynomial time, as opposed to the glacial pace of subexponential time achieved with classical algorithms.

Once it became well-known that the validity of the 2023 paper rested solely on Schnorr's algorithm, that research was also debunked.

Three weeks ago, panic erupted again when the South China Morning Post reported that scientists in that country had discovered a "breakthrough" in quantum computing attacks that posed a "real and substantial threat" to "military-grade encryption." The news outlet quoted paper co-author Wang Chao of Shanghai University as saying, "This is the first time that a real quantum computer has posed a real and substantial threat to multiple full-scale SPN [substitution-permutation networks] structured algorithms in use today."

Among the many problems with the article was its failure to link to the paper-reportedly published in September in the Chinese-language academic publication Chinese Journal of Computers-at all. Citing Wang, the paper said that the paper wasn't being published for the time being "due to the sensitivity of the topic." Since then, the South China Morning Post article has been quietly revised to remove the "military-grade encryption" reference.

With no original paper to reference, many news outlets searched the Chinese Journal of Computers for similar research and came up with this paper. It wasn't published in September, as the news article reported, but it was written by the same researchers and referenced the "D-Wave Advantage"-a type of quantum computer sold by Canada-based D-Wave Quantum Systems-in the title.

Some of the follow-on articles bought the misinformation hook, line, and sinker, repeating incorrectly that the fall of RSA was upon us. People got that idea because the May paper claimed to have used a D-Wave system to factor a 50-bit RSA integer. Other publications correctly debunked the claims in the South China Morning Post but mistakenly cited the May paper and noted the inconsistencies between what it claimed and what the news outlet reported.

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