Internet security, from the most common banking transaction to conversations on messaging platforms, rests mainly on cryptographic keys, strings of characters encrypted by an algorithm. The difficulty in deciphering them depends on factorization, the decomposition of an algebraic expression in product form, that is: six is equal to three times two. But this simple operation becomes extraordinarily complex if the given number exceeds a relatively small number of digits, such as 261980999226229. This algebraic expression has been factored by a rudimentary quantum computer in an experiment by Chinese scientists published in Arxiv, not yet reviewed, and has exposed the vulnerability of the system and, therefore, of the entire digital society.
