A researcher demonstrates that a Q-Day Prize submission claiming quantum-based ECDLP key recovery on IBM hardware is reproducible using only os.urandom (random noise) — no quantum computer needed. By replacing the IBM Quantum backend with a single 30-line patch generating uniform random bitstrings, every reported private key is recovered at statistically indistinguishable rates. The math shows that for all challenges up to 10-bit, the shots-to-group-order ratio is so high that random guessing succeeds with near-100% probability. Even the flagship 17-bit result (awarded 1 BTC) is recovered ~40% of the time on a laptop. The critique is narrowly focused: the engineering is genuine, but the cryptanalytic claim — that IBM quantum hardware performed ECDLP key recovery — is not supported.
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The diffResults: running the author's own CLI, patchedWhy this works (and why it's the submission's problem, not ours)ReproducingCaveatSort: