From Alex’s blog post, I’ve learned that there are enough recent breakthroughs in quantum computing that I should take post-quantum cryptography seriously. Google and Cloudflare both set a target of 2029 for having their systems secure against quantum computers. Similarly, the UK government is targeting 2035.

The issue is that cryptography is built upon math problems that are difficult to solve. Quantum computers make solving some of these problems such as integer factorization and discrete logs easier. If someone has a quantum computer that can sufficiently solve those two problems, then they can likely decrypt many ciphertexts that were produced using asymmetric cryptography techniques (think public/private key-pairs). Wikipedia has a great article discussing post-quantum cryptography if you want to read more.

Given all that, if the cost isn’t too high then it’s not a bad idea to look at our current systems and see what we can make quantum-resistant today. — Read More