Quantum cryptography

Researchers got a better look at the thoughts of chatbots, amateurs learned exactly how complicated simple systems can be, and quantum computers passed an essential milestone.

Cryptography is the thread that connects Julius Caesar, World War II and quantum computing, and it now lies under nearly every part of modern life. In this week’s episode, computer scientist Boaz Barak and co-host Janna Levin discuss the past and future of secrecy.

Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems.

Artificial intelligence learned how to generate text and art better than ever before, while computer scientists developed algorithms that solved long-standing problems.

Computer scientists this year learned how to transmit perfect secrets, why transformers seem so good at everything, and how to improve on decades-old algorithms (with a little help from AI).

A team of physicists has entangled three photons over a considerable distance, which could lead to more powerful quantum cryptography.

Fifty years after the current internet was born, the physicist and computer scientist Stephanie Wehner is planning and designing the next internet — a quantum one.

Urmila Mahadev spent eight years in graduate school solving one of the most basic questions in quantum computation: How do you know whether a quantum computer has done anything quantum at all?

A recent cryptographic breakthrough has proven difficult to put into practice. But new advances show how near-perfect computer security might be surprisingly close at hand.