The Red Dragon Searches for Pearls Through Quantum Tunneling – But You’ve Got the Wrong Paper
A September paper, soon hushed up, shows Chinese researchers may have discovered a class of quantum-annealing algorithm capable of attacking cryptography in a novel way
Recent media coverage has intensified discussions about quantum computing’s potential threat to modern cryptography, following a South China Morning Post (SCMP) report on a breakthrough by Chinese researchers using quantum-based techniques to compromise symmetric encryption algorithms. The SCMP article highlighted research published in the Chinese Journal of Computers (CJC) (计算机学报) on September 30; however the article did not specify the date of the Journal publication. The reported research detailed the use of the D-Wave Advantage quantum processor to attack the lightweight encryption ciphers of PRESENT, GIFT-64, and RECTANGLE.
Most news outlets mistakenly cited the same authors’ earlier paper, published in May 2024, that used D-Wave to run annealing algorithms targeting the RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) encryption system. Confusing the new research with t…
