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Posted

Having recently read up about the Beale Papers and the seeming impregnability of its two remaining unbroken ciphers to cryptanalysis (even allowing for the possibility that they may be fake) I should like to know if quantum computers will be able to crack such so-called 'book ciphers'. I gather that the one-time pad cipher is said to be - when applied correctly - theoretically impossible to break by any known means, which may be a comforting thought. So does the same invincibility apply to book ciphers like those two (alleged) ciphers contained in the Beale Papers? Many thanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers

Posted

I doubt it. Quantum computing helps with factoring, so it helps when when you have a number that's the product of two large prime numbers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad#Quantum_and_post-quantum_cryptography

an adversary with a quantum computer would still not be able to gain any more information about a message encrypted with a one time pad than an adversary with just a classical computer.

Whether a book cipher counts, I'm not 100% sure, but it's not the kind of encryption the quantum systems are supposed to solve. 

 

Trivia: I once saw that someone had addressed a letter to my workplace with the proposed recipient "Beale cipher crew"
I can neither confirm nor deny that such a crew existed

 

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