[Cryptography] Some quantum computers might need more power than supercomputers

[Tom Mitchell]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2026 at 13:45 Nicko van Someren <nicko at nicko.org> wrote:

> > On Jan 10, 2026, at 13:13, Jon Callas <jon at callas.org> wrote:
> ...
> > It's not even like that is a new thing. Back in the idealized era of
> Enigma/Lorentz decryptions, one of the major tasks was not decrypting
> messages so much as finding things worth decrypting. Decrypting the morning
> weather report isn't particularly useful.
>
> Well, actually specifically decrypting the morning weather report turned
> out to be very useful in the case of Enigma, because it was so predictable
> that it provided an excellent crib. As a result once you cracked the
> morning weather report you could get all the other traffic using that day's
> key. The rest of your argument all still holds though!



Cryptography is very important when one target is identified. In the above,
“those in need of weather”.

When you are that one target and you are one individual in the target,
decryption collapses for the one target and quantum tools become critical.

Discovering the “one” target is the iceberg problem.  It is giant under the
flood of information.  In mining minerals it is called benefaction or
milling systems.

An interesting “one” surfaces in linked block chain systems and money games.

The net worth of the top 1% makes them a 1 target.

Always there is key management.

So yes a game changer but knowing what the exact game is ???
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