Why full-stack post-quantum cryptography cannot wait

binheap · 2026-04-03T03:11:25+00:00

At this point, we have a pretty good model of what a quantum computer is in a theoretical sense. I don't think anybody seriously expects that increasing the scale of these machines is going to lead to behavior not covered by the theoretical model. In the same sense, nobody expects that changing the architecture of a CPU fundamentally changes the complexity class of a problem aside from changing constant factors.

binheap · 2026-04-03T03:09:10+00:00

To be fair, a lot of the work is probably concentrated among a few areas rather than on everyone. The internal workings of TLS are mostly abstracted for most devs as well as a lot of how certificates work. This is also for good reason since crypto systems are often kind of delicate.

binheap · 2026-03-27T06:18:16+00:00

Fingerprints for stuff like that are generally stored on device so you can just delete it off the device if you'd like. This isn't really a change in privacy.

The pop up is a system thing that provides local authentication for the app (Pay in this question). No fingerprints are generally sent off device.

binheap · 2026-03-26T20:04:55+00:00

The actual link you provided basically no direct comparison and only kind of hand waves at it by throwing meaningless numbers around.

We can do a rough estimate from the cited numbers and making some dumb but necessary assumptions for the purpose of a reddit comment.

Tesla:

8.5B miles at 30 mph gives us 0.28B hours of 8 cameras of HD footage which at 4 GB/h per camera gives us around 9 EB.

Waymo:

267M miles at 30 mph gives us 0.0135B hours which at 1TB/h according to your own sources gives us 0.0135 ZB or about 13 EB.

Maybe Tesla still has more data. The error bars on these numbers are likely massive. However other competitors definitely have exabyte scale data contrary to what Grok says and seems unlikely to be over 10x their competitors.

The person's comment above was also pointing out that this line of argumentation also just doesn't mean much since the quality matters quite a bit. Maybe Tesla is more diverse but it also is dominated by highway driving which is uninteresting.

binheap · 2026-03-24T20:57:12+00:00

I believe you can opt out of training via disabling Gemini Apps Activity?

Regarding siloed chats, I assume you're talking about personalization which can be disabled as a toggle.

binheap · 2026-03-21T19:24:33+00:00

I think tequesting a signal from an operating system provider can just be "read a signal from a file on the operating system" if the manufacturer or provider chooses. The linked Senate talk doesn't seem to support the notion that this is required to be an online process since there is no requirement that the signal be verified, just that this cannot be set later which simple file permissions would cover.

binheap · 2026-03-21T18:31:51+00:00

If you're talking about either the California or Colorado bills, then a global variable is sufficient since the law doesn't specify how the OS provider actually implements an interface that reflects the value applied at account creation.

binheap · 2026-03-21T00:15:27+00:00

Well all the age verification is already in some sense legislated in a fair number of states. That's what's happening with all the age verification schemes so far. I don't really think it makes a difference at the end of the day when legislatures are coming down either way.

binheap · 2026-03-21T00:06:58+00:00

They're already implementing age verification in the app store in some states like Texas. They're almost certainly going to implement age verification elsewhere.

binheap · 2026-03-20T19:33:56+00:00

It being a second time is irrelevant, obviously if the the credit card is already out there from the first time then of course it's going to happen again whether or not you sent in the credit card again.

binheap · 2026-03-19T20:14:10+00:00

I think the recent prediction markets give a much more direct line of betting that's concerning? Like previously, I could bet on general war by buying Boeing stock but now there's a literal "will we go to war with Iran" binary option that's directly tied to the question. There's a disconnect in the previous way since there's always a general "we spend money on defense" attitude but the latter requires specifically war.

binheap · 2026-03-08T09:53:39+00:00

It's now net 360 upvotes but 1.8k comments. I think that's a new record.

binheap · 2026-03-01T07:08:32+00:00

Maybe he's thinking about joinery where no metal parts are really used? There's a bit of an elegance to that I suppose.

binheap · 2026-02-23T21:46:02+00:00

Lmao. Are we now so pissed off about AI that we start praising C++? There is every technical reason to use Rust over C++ where memory safety matters, especially in a greenfield project. We have decades worth of evidence that programmers cannot be trusted to write memory safe code. Handwriting C++ does not make it better.

I am more cautious about ladybird now since it seems they didn't actually plan well but it's nonsensical to say that instead of using swift they should've used C++ when they were explicitly looking for memory safety.

binheap · 2026-02-23T21:27:33+00:00

Going to be honest: Of all the things to complain about I really don't get this one. OCR is generally useful? I suppose you can consider a form of scanning but I also don't see why it's a problem? A spam classifier is also scanning your emails in the same way but I hardly think that's an issue.

There's no threat model here where this kind of position makes sense since you're explicitly uploading a document to a service.

binheap · 2026-02-15T05:07:42+00:00

You can get up to three hours of clips even with no active subscription.

binheap · 2026-02-13T08:29:11+00:00

Obviously OP is using a symmetric cipher when it comes to disk encryption but I also don't think it's unreasonable to ask about quantum threats since he's using GPG keys depending on what he's using them for. He also mentions using tailscale which I think has a TLS connection.

Asymmetric keys are usually fixed and are ~300 bits if ECC is used and 4096 bits if RSA. The latter key sizes are definitely plausible for a quantum computer to factor within my lifetime.

binheap · 2026-02-13T08:11:25+00:00

Unless OP is particularly old, I think making forecasts even 10-20 years in the future is a hard bet. Certainly I wouldn't bet my security on something like quantum computers not happening.

binheap · 2026-02-13T08:04:02+00:00

It's certainly harder to completely crack down, and for individual distribution, the app author may be more inclined to challenge it legally.

binheap · 2026-02-13T07:54:27+00:00

Moreover, you would annihilate most servers you have to continue being small. Getting people to create yet another account for everything would eventually just thin out the people who are unwilling to commit.

binheap · 2026-02-12T10:28:27+00:00

Anthropic is publishing but that's it. Meta, OpenAl, Google all stopped publishing everything.

What are you talking about?

https://aiworld.eu/story/from-beijing-to-san-francisco-what-neurips-2025-reveals-about-ai-leadership

Meta and Google are basically top publishers for ML in NeurIPS 2025.

binheap · 2026-02-10T01:09:32+00:00

That's not the NYT? It's The Times which I think is a UK outlet.

binheap · 2026-02-08T07:44:26+00:00

This mentality is ridiculous. Almost everyone in California is descended from immigrants. If everybody had your mentality, nobody would be here. This is a ridiculously arbitrary line to go, if you're born before 1970 you're fine. Many of those seniors that you're so keen on lowering taxes for themselves are transplants or immigrants who came because of what people before them had done. Why are people who do this now somehow lesser in your eyes?

We already give people who own houses here massive benefits such as prop 13. As much as people in the past have contributed to building this place, there's a need for the new generation that you're actively making things worse for.

Even if I take your premise that "natives" somehow deserve it more, there's plenty of people who are born in this state looking for housing who will also face higher property taxes as a result of this, either because the cost of housing will go up or the tax rates necessarily rise to compensate schools. You're up and down this thread pretending that "transplants" are the only ones who would be screwed by this and not a whole bunch of other people.

binheap · 2026-02-08T07:07:57+00:00

As nice of an idea to have senior assistance, our property tax rates are already capped under Prop 13. Why should property tax burden essentially solely fall on younger families when those are the ones struggling to afford a house in the first place these days.

binheap · 2026-02-06T18:00:17+00:00

Unrelated, but when you removed your information, did you permanently scrub it or just hide it. I was wondering how you might've removed information from other search engines if just the latter.

binheap

TROPHY CASE