>Does anyone have any ideas on the best forum to elaborate on the following
>idea? I'm obviously presenting it here in shortened form (so someone might
>actually read the message), but would like to provide more details.
I'd suggest starting with a book on quantum mechanics. Schiff is
pretty decent. Then, start reading the literature so that you understand
something about both quantum computing and quantum encryption.
>For a fairly long amount of time, conventional computers will be able to
>prepare keys long enough to defeat decryption by quantum computers. But
>public key encryption can survive regardless of how advanced quantum
>computers get. The basic idea is to use the quantum computer itself to
>prepare a key that is too big to fit into quantum memory. This can be
That's totally inane and doesn't even make sense in the context
of a quantum computation.
>accomplished by generating primes which are, say, 5/6 the size of a key
>that the quantum computer can break. The two primes can then be multiplied
>(and used) on a conventional machine. A user such as a bank could change
>keys daily if quantum memory capacity increases, thereby requiring
>astronomical growth of quantum memory if decryption ability keeps up with
>encryption ability.
This is really silly.
>These primes, by assumption, could be generated by factoring a random number
>and using the largest factor, if it was big enough. Sounds far fetched, but
>in the strange new world of quantum computing, we can easily factor any
>number that will fit into the quantum machine. The only thing left to be
>determined is the distribution of the largest prime factor of a random
>number. D.W. Knuth [1981, pp. 367-369] discusses this in The Art of
>Computer Programming, Vol. II. The bottom line is that one could generate
>large primes fast enough for the idea to be feasible.
>Although some quantum computers have been slow, any quantum computer
I'd say so. There are none.
>big enough to serve as a factoring engine will have to be fast as blue
>blazes to prevent decoherence problems, so speed shouldn't be an issue.
>I'd appreciated any suggestions by readers on where to explore this in
>depth.
After first becomong acquainted with quantum mechanics, search the
archives at xxx.lanl.gov. There is also a book by john preskill at his
website at caltech which is a fairly good introduction to quantum
information. I don't know the url right off hand. It's in postscript
and probably about 400+ pages. From there, you'll need some field theory.
All of those things will reference the relevant literature.
