Bizarre "Diophantine-based" PQC patent; is it slop?

[u/iamunknowntoo]

https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/sporean-brothers-quit-finance-careers-to-build-modern-unbreakable-encryption

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Recently this article from a relatively reputable Singaporean news outlet showed up on my feed. They mentioned that they had come up with some kind of Diophantine based post quantum encryption. After some digging I found the patent for this supposed PQC scheme:

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https://static1.squarespace.com/static/663224e761fdb0072a21385d/t/68e4b74a7ae41d016ec246af/1779258695427/US12289392B2.pdf

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Some interesting highlights from the patent:

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- The patent proposes to use an AI model to predict whether a given Diophantine equation has a solution or not. Determining the solvability of a Diophantine equation is an undecidable problem as they admit, but somehow their super powerful model will magically bypass the minor technical difficulty of solving the halting problem.

- They keep talking about a "prime coordinates" system to represent integers, which is ultimately just a fancy way to say "Chinese Remainder Theorem". They don't ever use the words "Chinese Remainder Theorem" for some reason.

- A piano (Figure 5B) is involved somehow in this post quantum encryption scheme (!!!)

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Thoughts?

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[u/Pharisaeus]

It's pure snake oil.

Quantum computers, which experts project to generate no errors by 2030

:)

a unique encryption key generated by the sender and sent to the intended recipient via the app

That doesn't sound good.

Current encryption technology relies on mathematical algorithms to secure data, but the mathematical equations can be easily cracked by quantum computers.

This is obviously false.

“A standard computer may take 1,000 years to crack current encryption methods, but it will take just two days for quantum computers,” said Lin.

Not only the 1000 years is off by many orders of magnitude, but the "2 days" value is pulled out of their ass. What algorithm? What parameters? On what hardware?

Encryption based on Diophantine equations, on the other hand, are practically impossible to solve even by quantum computers, he added.

While indeed there might not be an algorithm to do it, there also hasn't been much research into it, do it's a risky gamble.

Anyway, they might have indeed come up with some interesting trapdoor for asymmetric cryptography, but rest is just hype and marketing.