This blog post by Scott Aaronson makes a convincing argument that the claims for the D-Wave are almost entirely media hype. It is not even faster than a classical computer at solving the one problem it was designed to solve.
Topic: A $15m computer that uses "quantum physics" effects to boost its speed (Read 1084 times)
May 17, 2013, 03:05:32 AM
May 17, 2013, 01:28:54 AM
this is kinda scary
May 16, 2013, 08:52:26 PM
If only I had it.. Lol
May 16, 2013, 07:53:28 PM
Simply coding in can stop a quantum computer from even accessing encryption.
What do you mean by coding in?
May 16, 2013, 07:02:22 PM
Simply coding in can stop a quantum computer from even accessing encryption.
May 16, 2013, 06:51:59 PM
Interesting stuff. These badboys will be the norm in 10 years? 
May 16, 2013, 06:50:03 PM
Encryption is nearly 100% safe, even governments with billions of dollars cant crack encryptions.
Yeah bro that encryption is like a big padlock for my folders and gifs! It's like, pffshh, yeah, whatever; just try and crack my encryptions you big dummy gov't man!
May 16, 2013, 06:31:19 PM
Encryption is nearly 100% safe, even governments with billions of dollars cant crack encryptions.
May 16, 2013, 06:29:12 PM
AES is done for! its all over man!
May 16, 2013, 06:23:32 PM
Say some rich guy (or Government) bought 10 or 15 of these. I bet they would be able to achieve a 51% attack.
10 to 15 of these would not even be logistically possible without a whole base dedicated to the running of them. That said do you even know what you can do with a 51% attack?Quote
An attacker that controls more than 50% of the network's computing power can, for the time that he is in control, exclude and modify the ordering of transactions. This allows him to:
Reverse transactions that he sends while he's in control. This has the potential to double-spend transactions that previously had already been seen in the block chain.
Prevent some or all transactions from gaining any confirmations
Prevent some or all other miners from mining any valid blocks
The attacker can't:
Reverse other people's transactions
Prevent transactions from being sent at all (they'll show as 0/unconfirmed)
Change the number of coins generated per block
Create coins out of thin air
Send coins that never belonged to him
Reverse transactions that he sends while he's in control. This has the potential to double-spend transactions that previously had already been seen in the block chain.
Prevent some or all transactions from gaining any confirmations
Prevent some or all other miners from mining any valid blocks
The attacker can't:
Reverse other people's transactions
Prevent transactions from being sent at all (they'll show as 0/unconfirmed)
Change the number of coins generated per block
Create coins out of thin air
Send coins that never belonged to him
Whoopdedo~ Fire the champagne. He can double spend some bitcoins and make a mess of confirmation and mining. Most if not all can be repaired once he lose his power anyway.
That would be if 10-15 of them would actually make a ripple in the system. My guess is not. Dont get me wrong it would be a fine mining rig but absolutely not 50% since its CPUs we are talking about here and not GPUs.
May 16, 2013, 06:16:46 PM
Say some rich guy (or Government) bought 10 or 15 of these. I bet they would be able to achieve a 51% attack.
May 16, 2013, 06:11:06 PM
Whos going to have the money to spend 15 mill on a computer?
If someone paid 15 million for it, and did run a 51% attack - bitcion would be worthless.
May 16, 2013, 05:54:39 PM
They are probably based on normal processors and thus they will suffer from the same limitations. That beast will probably mine about as fast as a few good graphics cards at most.
Quantum computer's would destroy bitcoin and possibly be able to decrypt public address hashes theoretically - if indeed this is a quantum computer. May 16, 2013, 11:57:05 AM
that's the thing with quantum computers. No encryption is safe
May 16, 2013, 11:38:22 AM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22554494
Bam.
Quote
Quantum computing is based around exploiting the strange behaviour of matter at quantum scales.
Most work on this type of computing has focused on building quantum logic gates similar to the gate devices at the basis of conventional computing.
But physicists have repeatedly found that the problem with a gate-based approach is keeping the quantum bits, or qubits (the basic units of quantum information), in their quantum state.
"You get drop out… decoherence, where the qubits lapse into being simple 1s and 0s instead of the entangled quantum states you need. Errors creep in," says Prof Alan Woodward of Surrey University.
One gate opens...
Instead, D-Wave Systems has been focused on building machines that exploit a technique called quantum annealing - a way of distilling the optimal mathematical solutions from all the possibilities.
Geordie Rose, D-Wave Geordie Rose believes others have taken the wrong approach to quantum computing
Annealing is made possible by physics effect known as quantum tunnelling, which can endow each qubit with an awareness of every other one.
"The gate model... is the single worst thing that ever happened to quantum computing", Geordie Rose, chief technology officer for D-Wave, told BBC Radio 4's Material World programme.
"And when we look back 20 years from now, at the history of this field, we'll wonder why anyone ever thought that was a good idea."
Dr Rose's approach entails a completely different way of posing your question, and it only works for certain questions.
Most work on this type of computing has focused on building quantum logic gates similar to the gate devices at the basis of conventional computing.
But physicists have repeatedly found that the problem with a gate-based approach is keeping the quantum bits, or qubits (the basic units of quantum information), in their quantum state.
"You get drop out… decoherence, where the qubits lapse into being simple 1s and 0s instead of the entangled quantum states you need. Errors creep in," says Prof Alan Woodward of Surrey University.
One gate opens...
Instead, D-Wave Systems has been focused on building machines that exploit a technique called quantum annealing - a way of distilling the optimal mathematical solutions from all the possibilities.
Geordie Rose, D-Wave Geordie Rose believes others have taken the wrong approach to quantum computing
Annealing is made possible by physics effect known as quantum tunnelling, which can endow each qubit with an awareness of every other one.
"The gate model... is the single worst thing that ever happened to quantum computing", Geordie Rose, chief technology officer for D-Wave, told BBC Radio 4's Material World programme.
"And when we look back 20 years from now, at the history of this field, we'll wonder why anyone ever thought that was a good idea."
Dr Rose's approach entails a completely different way of posing your question, and it only works for certain questions.
Bam.
May 16, 2013, 11:31:53 AM
What would happen if this computer was used to generate all the private keys of all possible bitcoin address via bruteforce? 
May 16, 2013, 11:08:24 AM
Yes and no. Together
May 16, 2013, 11:04:34 AM
not sure
me too 
May 16, 2013, 11:03:29 AM
not sure
May 16, 2013, 11:01:54 AM
I read ultra quickly and I understood it's not what is called a "quantum computer". It just uses a processor that uses quantum effects in its transistors.
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