A quantum computer algorithm that is used to find the prime factors in an encryption key. Created by applied mathematician Peter Shor in the mid-1990s, Shor's algorithm may be used to break the codes ...

Encryption in electronic commerce is widely based on RSA — an algorithm first described by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman — which owes its security to the idea that finding factors of very large numbers ...

Quantum computers still can’t do much. Almost every time researchers have found something the high-tech machines should one day excel at, a classical algorithm comes along that can do it just as well ...

Two groups of scientists have separately implemented computing schemes that threaten the assumptions made in modern encryption technology. Now, we don't pretend to understand the quantum mechanics ...