How IBM Is Making Your Passwords Useless
For years, quantum computing has been hailed as a technology that could change the way the modern world works, but a long-standing technical issue has kept that potential from being realized. Now, in a paper published in the journal Nature last week, IBM scientists have taken a big step (see how I avoided the temptation to make a pun there?) toward solving that problem — and while it could represent progress toward making quatum computers real, it also could mean that current cybersecurity standards will soon be much easier to crack. In other words, your passwords could be obsolete soon.
The power of quantum computing has some obvious appeal: The increase in processing power could speed up research, especially in big data applications. Problems with large datasets, or those that need many millions (or billions, or more) of simulations to develop a working theory, would be able to be run at speeds unthinkable today. This could mean giant leaps forward in medical research, where enhanced simulations can be used to test cancer treatments or work on the development of new vaccines for ebola, HIV, malaria and the other diseases. High-level physics labs like CERN could use the extra power to increase our understanding of the way the universe at large works.
But the most immediate impact for the regular person would be in the way your private information is kept safe. Current encryption relies on massively large prime numbers to encode your sensitive information. Using combinations of large prime numbers means that anyone trying to crack such encryption needs to attempt to factor at least one of those numbers to get into encrypted data. When you buy something from, say, Amazon, the connection between your computer and Amazon is encrypted using that basic system (it's more complicated than that, but that's the rough summary). The time it would take a digital computer to calculate these factors is essentially past the heat death of the universe. (Still, this won't help you if your password is password, or monkey, or 123456. Please, people, use a password manager.)
Quantum computing, however, increases processing speed and the actual nature of the computation so significantly that it reduces that time to nearly nothing, making current encryption much less secure.
The IBM researcher that could make that happen is complicated, and it requires some background explanation. For starters, while a "traditional" computing bit can be either a 0 or a 1, a quantum computing bit can have three (or infinite, depending on how you want to interpret the concept) states. More specifically, a qubit can be 0, 1, or both.
Up until now, the both part of that caused some problems in realizing the power of quantum computing.
Apparently — and you'll have to take this on faith a bit, as it hurts my head to think about it — the both state can switch back to either 0 or 1 at any given point, and sometimes incorrectly, based on the logic in the programming. Think about when your phone freezes up for a second or two while you're matching tiles. This is its processor handling vast amounts of information and filtering out the operations that fail for any number of reasons, from buggy code to malware to basic electrical noise. When there are only the two binary states, this is a process that usually happens behind the scenes and quickly.
The hold-up with quantum computing up until now is that the vastly greater potential for errors has stymied attempts to identify and nullify them. One additional wrinkle in this reading quantum states is familiar to anyone with basic science fiction knowledge, or perhaps just the ailurophobics. What if the action of reading the qubit actually causes it to collapse to 0 or 1?
The very smart people at IBM think they've solved this. The actual technical explanation is involved, and well beyond my ability to fully follow, but the gist is that instead of just having the qubits arrayed in a lattice on their own, they are arranged such that neighbors essentially check each other, producing the ability to check the common read problems.
That opens the door to further quantum computing developments, including ones that will make your password a thing of the past. So, does this mean that you need to start hoarding gold? No, not yet. And hopefully before quantum computing reaches commercial, or even simply industrial/governmental levels, a better cyber security method will be in place. Or the robots will have already taken over. I for one welcome them.
Why the Class of 2015 May Actually Get Good Jobs
Not only are there more jobs available for 2015 college grads, there are more good jobs available to them, according to a new analysis by economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The New York fed found that the underemployment rate for recent graduates—which had risen steadily with the exception of a fleeting dip in 2011—has finally started to fall. It has dropped about 2 percentage points since last June to 44.6.
That trend, coupled with a continued decline in unemployment for recent college grads, offers reason for hope for the class of 2015. Job postings for college graduates have increased by about 10 percent since last summer.
Related: The 10 Best Cities for New Grads to Launch their Careers
“While the demand for college graduates appears to be picking up, significant labor market slack remains,” write authors Jaison R. Abel and Richard Dietz. “So continued strong growth in the demand for college graduates may well be necessary to make a more serious dent in the underemployment rate.”
A separate study released last month by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that employers expect to hire nearly 10 percent more new college graduates this year than last year.
The ease with which students can find jobs will depend not only on their major (those with degrees in engineering, business and computer science are the most in demand), but also on their location. A recent report by WalletHub ranking the nation’s largest cities from best to worst places to start a career found showed that cities in Texas and California have the most opportunities.
Undertrained US Drone Pilots Put War Effort at Risk
The U.S. military is allowing pilots who haven’t fully completed their training to fly predator drones over Yemen and Pakistan—potentially putting innocent people on the ground at risk if something goes wrong.
An alarming new report by the Government Accountability Office found that drone pilots in the Army and Air Force have been skimping on their training sessions in order to get assigned to missions faster.
Related: Who Knew the Navy Could Launch 30 Drones in 60 Seconds?
The GAO said that because there is a shortage of drone pilots, the Air Force and Army have been routinely speeding up the process by cutting training time.
“As a result, the Army does not know the full extent to which pilots have been trained and are therefore ready to be deployed,” the report said.
The GAO reviewed Air Force records and found that only 35 percent of pilots operating drones had completed their required training.
Some pilots told the auditors that training wasn’t completed because there was a lack of funding or gaps in knowledge about the unmanned aerial systems (UAS) commonly called drones.
“Army UAS pilots stated that leadership of larger non-aviation units that oversee their UAS units do not understand UAS pilot training,” the report said.
The GAO had previously reported that there weren’t enough drone pilots compared with the number the Air Force said it needed. At New Mexico’s Holloman Air Force Base, for example, drone pilot staffing was at only 63 percent of full staffing level, the report said.
The latest findings from the GAO seem to confirm that this is still an issue.
Related: The Duck Drone That Could Change the Navy
The U.S. military says it is taking action to increase the number of instructors in order to get more pilots through the complete training process. However, the GAO said that the Army hasn’t fully addressed “the risks associated with using less experienced instructors.”
The Army waived course prerequisites for nearly 40 percent of its drone pilots who were working toward becoming instructors.
“As a result, the Army risks that its UAS pilots may not be receiving the highest caliber of training needed to prepare them to successfully perform UAS missions,” the auditors said.
Meanwhile the Air Force faces instructor shortages as well.
The report calls into question whether a lack of training could hamper drone pilots’ ability to successfully and safely complete their missions. It comes amid intense scrutiny of the government’s drone program after a botched mission in January killed two Western hostages during an attack on al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Scrutiny of the program is nothing new. Human rights activists have long called on the administration to cease using drones in its ongoing war on terror because of civilian casualties.
A 2013 report by Human Rights Watch said that between 2009 and 2013, U.S. drone strikes killed 57 civilians in six different strikes in Yemen. Last year the Yemeni government paid $1 million to families of victims of one of those strikes, which targeted a wedding and killed 11 people.
You Won’t Believe How Much It Costs When Your Dog Bites Someone
Boy, it can really smart when your dog bites somebody.
Insurance companies paid an average of $32,000 last year in homeowner’s liability claims for dog-related injuries, according to a new analysis by the Insurance Information Institute (III).
But don’t think that’s your insurer’s problem. Filling one liability claim can take a bite out of your savings if you don’t have the right policy and push up your homeowner’s insurance premiums by an average of 14 percent, according to a recent analysis by InsuranceQuotes.com.
Dog bites and other dog-related injuries totaled $530 million and accounted for more than a third of all homeowners’ insurance liability dollars paid out in 2014. In addition to dog bites, the claims cover the costs of dogs knocking down children or bikers, resulting in fractures or trauma.
The number of claims last year fell by about 5 percent, but the cost per claim spiked 15 percent. The cost of dog-related injury claims has gone up 57 percent in the past decade, thanks to increasing medical costs and growing judge and jury awards.
Related: The Real Cost of Filing a Homeowners’ Insurance Claim
California had the most claims in the country, with 1,866, while New York had the highest average cost per claim -- an average of nearly $57,000 last year.
A separate report released Thursday by the U.S Postal Service showed that there were 74 dog attacks on postal workers in Los Angeles last year, the most of any city, followed by 62 in Houston, and 47 in San Diego.
III recommends that dog lovers research the safest and most appropriate dog for their household or neighborhood before purchasing a pup and use caution when bringing a dog into a home with an infant or toddler.
Or try a parakeet.
Where the Gold Is: 40 Nations with Highest Holdings
The World Gold Council is out with its latest report on gold demand.
In the first quarter, demand dropped by 11 tonnes, or 1%, year-over-year.
"Top-line demand was broadly neutral — down just 11t (1%) despite substantial underlying differences across geographies and sectors," the report said.
Related: Putin Is Hoarding Gold and Rattling Sabers--What’s He Up to Now?
"Pockets of strength in jewelry were balanced by weakness elsewhere as demand responded to local conditions in each market. Higher volumes in India, the US, and the smaller Southeast Asian markets were set against declines in China, Turkey, Russia, and the Middle East."
On Thursday, gold continued its rally after breaking above the key $1,200 level on Wednesday.
Gold rose to as high as $1,223 an ounce, its highest level in three months.
And so with gold demand broadly neutral, this chart shows which countries are holding the most gold:
This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
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We Just Went Through the Worst Month Since the Great Recession
We already knew the economy really struggled over the first few months of 2015, with March being especially rough. A new report from economists at Macroeconomic Advisers shows just how bad a month it really was.
The forecasting firm, which tracks economic progress on a monthly basis rather than just a quarterly one, now says that GDP fell 1 percent in March. “This was the largest decline since December 2008, when the U.S. economy was in the throes of recession,” its update notes.
The Commerce Department initially estimated that GDP grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.2 percent in the first quarter. An updated report, due May 29, is now expected to show that the economy actually shrank over the first three months of the year. J.P. Morgan economists have lowered their tracking estimate of first-quarter GDP from -0.8 percent to -1.1 percent based on data released over the last two days.
Related: Why So Many Americans Are Trapped in ‘Deep Poverty’
As we’ve written before, though, the downturn isn’t necessarily reason to worry about the fundamental health of the economy, or at least it shouldn’t stoke fears that we’re diving into another recession. As the Macroeconomic Advisers report explains, “A sharp decline in net exports more than accounted for the decline in monthly GDP, as resolution to the West Coast port dispute led to a surge in imports to well above the recent trend. As a result, they write, they believe the one-month plunge “overstates the underlying weakness in the economy.”
That’s not to say the economy is particularly strong, either. Both Macroeconomic Advisers and J.P. Morgan now forecast second-quarter GDP growth to come in at a tepid 2 percent annualized rate.