Peter Shor didn’t set out to break the internet. But an algorithm he developed in the mid-1990s threatened to do just that. In a landmark paper, Shor showed how a hypothetical computer that exploited ...

The rise of quantum computing and its implications for current encryption standards are well known. But why exactly should quantum computers be especially adept at breaking encryption? The answer is a ...

Quantum computing advances raise concerns over 10,000 qubits breaking P‑256 encryption using Shor’s algorithm, driving ...

In 1994, a Bell Labs mathematician named Peter Shor cooked up an algorithm with frightening potential. By vastly reducing the computing resources required to factor large numbers—to break them down ...

Bitcoin’s security relies on elliptic curve cryptography, a one-way mathematical function that makes deriving a private key from a public key effectively impossible for traditional computers. Shor’s ...

Quantum computers still can’t do much. Almost every time researchers have found something the high-tech machines should one day excel at, a classical algorithm comes along that can do it just as well ...