OneQuantum Philippines Newsletter#2
Thank you for reading our second Newsletter
I began writing this newsletter while on a road trip going to the Cebu, the Philippines’ second major city where fellow OneQuantum member Brian Siegelwax resides. As I was passing by Bicol, I saw this great view from Mt Mayon. It’s a perfect-coned volcano and one of the main attractions here in the Philippines. If you happen to go to our country, don’t forget to visit this majestic landmark.
Kudos
First of all, kudos to Brian Siegelwax, one of our members in OneQuantum Philippines, for winning the Innovative Solution Prize in the latest Classiq Coding Competition. Congratulations Brian and thanks for being an inspiration to the group!
What are we up to these days?
It’s been a constant series of activities going on with OneQuantum Philippines. Here’s what we’ve been up to.
Shor’s Algorithm Series:
Our focus is to build deep skills in Quantum Computing starting with the basics. If you’ve heard about Quantum Computing but don’t have a clear picture of how it actually does the computation, then the basics are for you. We offer a 7 part series for you to understand Shor’s algorithm, from theory to implementation on QISKit.
RSA Encryption - May 20, 2022. In this session, we discuss what RSA encryption is all about by teaching you how to encrypt data using a public key and how to decrypt data using a private key. We also show you another way to decrypt data without a public key, and that is by the use of the period.
RSA Theory - May 26, 2022. We discuss the theory behind RSA. We show using basic group theory the group structure of the RSA, the reason we have the encryption and decryption formula, and the reason why you can also decrypt a message even without a private key by using period finding.
RSA And Quantum Computing - June 9, 2022. We show how a quantum computer is set up for Shor’s algorithm. This part discusses the mathematics behind Shor’s algorithm. We show how superposition allows us to compute the modular exponentiation of all numbers that N number of qubits can represent and how Quantum Fourier transform can give us a clue of the period and finally use continued fraction expansion to compute for the period. We then show the probability of getting this answer, which is important as we don’t always get the period on the first run of Shor’s algorithm.
Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). We introduce elliptic curve cryptography, how to use it and the theory behind it. We show that ECC has a similar structure to RSA, in that they are instances of the Hidden Subgroup Problem and that’s the reason they can both be cracked using the Shor’s Algorithm.
Quantum Computing and Elliptic Curve Cryptography. Here we show how to set up the quantum computer to solve for the period in order to crack ECC encryption.
Quantum Fourier Transform - Here we derive the quantum circuit of the Quantum Fourier Transform that is used in Shor’s algorithm. We do this starting from the mathematical formulation of the Quantum Fourier Transform.
Programming the Shor’s Algorithm in QISKit - This wraps up all the theory we’ve been discussing so far and implements the Shor’s algorithm in QISKit to decrypt a 4-bit RSA encryption. This section becomes very easy because all the background information and the hard work has been done in the previous sessions.
We have just completed the RSA and Quantum Computing lecture. Our next session, Elliptic Curve Cryptography, will be on June 23.
At the end of the 7-session lecture series, you will become confident that you’ve got a good idea of what quantum computing is and how it’s able to crack the RSA and ECC cryptosystems.
Reinvent your careers with John Barnes
June 3, 2022. In the first part of this meetup, John Barnes discussed how one can shift their career and be able to enter the quantum ecosystem. The second part was a question and answer portion with participants raising their questions in YouTube. For more details please watch the recording here:
Member Spotlight
Asher Manangan - Asher is an undergraduate student of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines taking Computer Science. Aside from his passion for Quantum Computing, he helps the team in our streaming presentations and event announcements. The posters that you see announcing our events are the work of Asher. To know more about him, let him introduce himself to you via this video:
Upcoming Activities
Introduction to ZX-Calculus with Harny Wang, PhD, June 24, 2022
According to wikipedia, ZX-Calculus is a “rigorous graphical language for reasoning about linear maps between qubits, which are represented as ZX-diagrams. A ZX-diagram consists of a set of generators called spiders that represent specific tensors”. This is something new to us and we are excited to learn more about it. If you are also interested, please join us at this event on June 24, 2022, at 7 PM Philippine Standard Time. Here’s the link to the live event.
Please stay tuned for more of our upcoming activities! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.