Sam Jaques

Assistant prof at U Waterloo. Loves maths, maps, algorithms, and flashcards. Aspiring full-stack cryptographer. He/him. @[email protected]

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

By request, an overview of quantum computing: https://t.co/uYhhycWAex

tl;dr RSA won't be broken for a long time, but you should probably still switch to post-quantum soon

Experts on NISQ: please let me know of any omissions/errors!

[Steve Weis @sweis]

Can you put this in a post for a general tech audience, @sejaques?

So many people think QC is right around the corner, about to break their cryptography.

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

@sweis @dallairedemers @bwesterb @veorq Oh shoot I thought this was bluesky, Ive got to delete this app

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Wrote up a thread with my thoughts here: https://t.co/lTlYdJl45p

[Craig Gidney @CraigGidney]

10 years ago Kelly et al showed bigger rep code circuits do better. The dream was to do the same for a full quantum code.

This year we finally did it. https://t.co/NNe7Za0gkh has d=5 surface codes twice as good as d=3. And d=7 twice as good again, outliving the physical qubits.

[Michael Newman @MikeNewmQuantum]

Houston, we are below the quantum error correction threshold! 🚀

In “Quantum error correction below the surface code threshold” (https://t.co/sScOACIe7u), we implement a 101-qubit surface code.

Each time we increase the distance by two, the logical error rate is cut in half!

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

It's actually a reasonable heuristic to expect that chemicals that life had millions of years to adapt to will be safer than totally new ones. Is it always right? Of course not. But it's not ignorant.

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Pet peeve: scientists who say "oh you don't like 'chemicals'? Well water is a chemical! Dihydrogen monoxide!"

You know damn well that "chemicals" means "chemicals that never/rarely existed on Earth until humans synthesized them at scale"

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

@CraigGidney Also, what's the license on the tool? Same as Stim?

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Silly idea: university course catalogs should include "alpha" and "beta" for the course: the slope and intercept of a linear regression between grades in that course and a student's overall average

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

@CraigGidney Did you optimize CCZ factories automatically with that tool? I couldn't find one in the example files.

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

@itranneo @hashbreaker How familiar are you with lattice security generally? Larger q => easier to break the underlying lattice problem(s). If q is exponentially large I think it's totally broken.

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Bless whoever added this photo to the "All horses are the same colour" paradox Wikipedia page

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Singapore will make new orchid hybrid varieties and name them after visiting dignitaries. I guess you could call that... soft flower diplomacy 🥁🥁💥

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Me to a colleague: I think it's fine if students address us informally in email, the new generation has different norms

Me when a student starts an email with "Hi Sammy": the lord is testing me

[Tanja Lange @hyperelliptic]

To those in (a timezone compatible with) Pacific Daylight Time:: I will be speaking at the @Visa Quantum day on 21 May along with Sam Jaques (@sejaques ), Renato Renner, & Brian Coyle (@BrianC2095 ).
Registration is open and free at https://t.co/TtPMaUOD33 (sorry, MS Teams link).

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Halfway through the return journey and I have something concrete to say about it: https://t.co/SC0x6h6Qs0

I didn't make it past step 4, but I tried to give some intuition on complex gaussians and Karst waves

(ICYMI others discovered a critical flaw; see the updated eprint)

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

8 hour train ride, fresh mug of coffee, let's goooo

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Writing up my main impressions in an expository note, but one of my questions is here: https://t.co/M0pTayG0yp

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

8 hour train ride, fresh mug of coffee, let's goooo

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

I'm also asking Qs in this discord: https://t.co/mSPZjEtKBi.

So far: step 1 looks legit. Only 8 more to go :)

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

@jjaron Hm, I wonder if a log plot would match wealth intuition better

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

Kind of amazing that Encrochat was used for basically the exact same thing (though the app was originally not backdoored). I guess criminals really want dedicated apps made just for criminals?

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

LOL: "Fake messaging app that actually just BCC's all your messages to the FBI" is a real Gordian knot solution to encryption backdoors.

(Though, I worry of the long con: if people think services are already backdoored, it will be easier to pass backdoor legislation)

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

@bwesterb I'm being a bit facetious. If I had 2000 engineers it would make sense to assign one to work on efficiency of the key exchange. But generally, there are 1,999 other components with just as much performance impact, so focusing on any one needs some justification

[Sam Jaques @sejaques]

0.05% is not a lot, actually

"But at scale that's millions of dollars, and so much energy!"

You know what else costs a lot at that scale? The other 99.95%!

[Bas Westerbaan @bwesterb]

One in every two thousand CPU cycles of Meta is used for X25519.