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A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines

words.filippo.io

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Re: A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines

#4

What do you recomend as reading material for someone that was in college a while ago (before AE modes got popular) to get up to speed with the new PQ developments?

If you want something book-shaped, the 2nd edition of Serious Cryptography is updated to when the NIST standards were near-final drafts, and has a nice chapter on post-quantum cryptography.

If you want something that includes details on how they were deployed, I'm afraid that's all very recent and I don't have good references.

Re: A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines

#5
This is a good take, there's really not much to argue about.

>[...] the availability of HPKE hybrid recipients, which blocked on the CFRG, which took almost two years to select a stable label string for X-Wing (January 2024) with ML-KEM (August 2024), despite making precisely no changes to the designs. The IETF should have an internal post-mortem on this, but I doubt we’ll see one

My kingdom for a standards body that discusses and resolves process issues.

Re: A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines

#6

This seems like something uniquely suited to the startup ecosystem. I.e. offering PQ Encryption Migration as a Service. PQ algorithms exist and now theres a large lift required to get them into the tech with substantial possible value.

… really? This is simultaneously so far down in the plumbing and extremely resistant to measuring the impact of, I can’t imagine anyone building a company off of this that’s not already deep in the weeds (lookin’ at you, WolfSSL).

The idea that a startup would be competitive in the VC “the only thing that matters are the feels” environment seems crazy to me.

Re: A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines

#9

This seems like something uniquely suited to the startup ecosystem. I.e. offering PQ Encryption Migration as a Service. PQ algorithms exist and now theres a large lift required to get them into the tech with substantial possible value.

… really? This is simultaneously so far down in the plumbing and extremely resistant to measuring the impact of, I can’t imagine anyone building a company off of this that’s not already deep in the weeds (lookin’ at you, WolfSSL). The idea that a startup would be competitive in the VC “the only thing that matters are the feels” environment seems crazy to me.

Yeah... I spent the 90s working for RSADSI and Certicom implementing algorithms. Crypto is a vitamin, not an aspirin. Hardly anyone is capable of properly assessing risk in general, much less the technical world of information risk management. Telling someone they should pay you money to reduce the impact of something that may or may not happen in the future is not a sales win.

Re: A cryptography engineer's perspective on quantum computing timelines

#10

In rebuttal, Peter Gutmann seems to think the progress towards quantum computing devices which can break commonly used public key crypto systems is not moving especially quickly: https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/1237

That's not a rebuttal. The post references the paper and a rebuttal to it from an expert in the field.
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