From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 11:34:17 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Quantum Snooping
Message-ID: <199804281834.OAA18494@camel8.mindspring.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


New York Times' Markoff reports today on the latest in quantum 
computing, some of which was discussed here recently. Two
points of note:

IBM recently made a "snapshot" of the entire worldwide Web,
eight trillion bytes of data, for an experimental database for 
searching and unnamed other manipulation by its quantum 
computers. Searching the database for a word by conventional 
computers would take a month, while quantum devices could
do it in 27 minutes, a Beamer says.

NSA is funding quantum computing at Los Alamos specifically
for cryptographic investigation, "because QC could have
a profound effect on modern cryptography."

Others forms of warp speed snooping are discussed as well.

---------

Restricted:

"Snow Crash" is featured in a hot-selling book on the thought
of the American Left, "Achieving Our Country," by philosopher
Richard Rorty. The book is swell reading on the state of US
thought, culture and politics whatever your disagreeable attitude. 
It's smallish, but for those completely broke and open to copyleft, 
grab it before IBM kicks it offshore:

   http://jya.com/161.htm  (238K)

   http://jya.com/161.zip  (89K)