[Gllug] Bomb the ISP's

[Kieran Barry]

On 17 Sep 2001, Nix wrote:

> On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Nathan Matthews said:
> >>From what I understand Quantum Computers stand to make any Prime Factor
> > based code almost trivial to decript, There certainly a theoretical
> > possibility.  I'd be surprised if the NSA didnt allready possess one.
> 
> The NSA are spook mathematicians, not spook quantum physicists.

Well, that tears it. Maths has _nothing_ in common w/ quantum physics.
> 
> There are *very* few good quantum computing people out there, and
> they're overwhelmingly concentrated in academia (and IBM). 

It's good that you alone know that it isn't true that IBM has a history
of collaborating closely with the NSA. Ferinstance, preliminary work on
DES was done at Yorktown Heights labs by a team led by Feistel, then
fine tuned by the boys and girls at Fort Meade.

And of course, in academia, no-one needs research grants from shady
orgs with multi-billion dollar budgets. And Whit Diffie wasn't on an NSA
research grant when he started looking at knapsack probs at Stanford.

>                                                       There are few
> enough that they can be individually tracked :)
> 
And, of course, the NSA is _so incompetent_ that this wouldn't interest
them? And being the world's _biggest buyer_ of computer kit, and the
only org that measures said kit in operations per square foot, and the
only one that builds and runs private chip fabs, means they don't care
about new developments? 

Well, it's good that you shared your knowledge with us here.
> -- 
> `Upsetting this BOFH was a BAD MOVE.' --- Chris Newport

Too true.

Regards

Kieran


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