Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

postquantum.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 66 posts

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#31

Post by dredmorbius »

kibwen wrote: post #16
tsimionescu wrote: post #8

I'm very curious how much people will look back on this frenzy of PQC migration panic by 2050 when, my bet, there still won't be any remotely viable QCs. The decade plus of even slower TLS negotiation that this will bring in the name of "security", after so much time spent previously on improving encrypted connection latency, will seem quite comical, at least.

Ironically, given that the primary use case for developing quantum computers is breaking classical encryption, switching en-masse to post-quantum schemes may very well ensure that developing a working quantum computer may never be economically viable to develop.

The history of diligence in properly utilising and applying security measures strongly suggests that QC will in fact provide positive utility even if viable PQC countermeasures are developed and deployed.

From yesterday's posts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48983610> (my comment on the Romanian land registry hacking thread).

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#32

Post by dredmorbius »

plopilop wrote: post #25
alphager wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work as a security architect in a major European company. We're currently demanding a full cryptographic inventory of every new product purchased or service built in-house and will start demanding PQC in 2028. Not because we expect a workable quantum computer by 2030 (current estimates are around 2035-2040), but because stuff survives for decades in large enterprises (especially if it touches hardware in any way. T…

Man, the CBOM is such a pain. There is no standardised format yet (let alone efficient tools for crypto discovery), nobody knew what it was one year ago but now every client is asking ours anyway.

CBOM: Cryptography bill of materials.

https://cyclonedx.org/capabilities/cbom/>

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#33

Post by BoppreH »

tsimionescu wrote: post #8

I'm very curious how much people will look back on this frenzy of PQC migration panic by 2050 when, my bet, there still won't be any remotely viable QCs. The decade plus of even slower TLS negotiation that this will bring in the name of "security", after so much time spent previously on improving encrypted connection latency, will seem quite comical, at least.

Most fire hydrants are never used either, but we don't consider them wasted.

In your opinion, what chance of QC would warrant PQC migration? Would you be ok with a 20% chance of everyone being caught unprepared? 30%? 50%?

Keep in mind the impact is "hackers can take control of almost all online infrastructure and forge almost any document".

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#34

Post by krisbolton »

tsimionescu wrote: post #8

I'm very curious how much people will look back on this frenzy of PQC migration panic by 2050 when, my bet, there still won't be any remotely viable QCs. The decade plus of even slower TLS negotiation that this will bring in the name of "security", after so much time spent previously on improving encrypted connection latency, will seem quite comical, at least.

I wouldn't categorize it as a panic. Standards and security organizations are recommending moving to PQC based on projections of capability. CloudFlare and Google recently moved their timeline forward for PQC migration based on new data[1][2].

1. https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-quantum-roadmap/ 2. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-secu...

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#35

Post by krisbolton »

exmadscientist wrote: post #15
exmadscientist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This looks from the outside like someone read a report, got unnecessarily spooked, and now the rest of the herd is following along. But it's also very possible that hypothetical report was genuinely concerning. We just haven't seen it or anything like it. However I'm pretty firmly in the "quantum computing won't be doing anything useful any time soon, if ever" camp, so that definitely colors my opinions. I do…

Would anyone downvoting care to explain? I'm genuinely interested in seeing anything that suggests there's either some secret breakthrough (completely plausible, but there's no evidence that I've seen hint of) making quantum computers actually useful, or an argument that they'll be usable by (say) 2050? Because right now my attitudes are trained by things like this https://algassert.com/post/2500 that explain just wh…

Google and Cloudflare recently moved their PQC migration timelines forward based on recent research papers in the field. Sources: 1. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-secu... 2. https://blog.cloudflare.com/post-quantum-roadmap/

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#36

Post by tzs »

kibwen wrote: post #16
tsimionescu wrote: post #8

I'm very curious how much people will look back on this frenzy of PQC migration panic by 2050 when, my bet, there still won't be any remotely viable QCs. The decade plus of even slower TLS negotiation that this will bring in the name of "security", after so much time spent previously on improving encrypted connection latency, will seem quite comical, at least.

Ironically, given that the primary use case for developing quantum computers is breaking classical encryption, switching en-masse to post-quantum schemes may very well ensure that developing a working quantum computer may never be economically viable to develop.

A large part of the investments in developing quantum computing are for drug discovery, materials science, and logistics.

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#37

Post by hujun »

michaelt wrote: post #24
tsimionescu wrote: post #8

I'm very curious how much people will look back on this frenzy of PQC migration panic by 2050 when, my bet, there still won't be any remotely viable QCs. The decade plus of even slower TLS negotiation that this will bring in the name of "security", after so much time spent previously on improving encrypted connection latency, will seem quite comical, at least.

I'm logging into websites using unique passwords with 44 bits of entropy, which they feed into a hash algorithm that takes 200ms to hash each attempt, then entering a TOTP code or touching my Yubikey, and they check against my geoip history and fingerprint my browser and they want me to complete a captcha and they e-mail/SMS a one-time code to me and they send me an e-mail telling me there's a new login to my account…

The two key issues PQC try to address are key exchange and digital signature, which happen during TLS handshake, the mechanism you described happen after TLS is established; so if a quantum computer breaks TLS, then it effectively reduced HTTPS to HTTP

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#38

Post by dylan604 »

From TFA: "The policy reflects growing concern about Harvest Now, Decrypt Later (HNDL) attacks, in which adversaries intercept and store encrypted communications today with the intention of decrypting them once a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) becomes available."

Once it gets to be "later" where the harvest data is able to be decrypted, I guess will have decent enough LLMs to summarize all of that data? Otherwise, there's going to be such a huge back log to make it not too useful

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#39

Post by anakaine »

khurs wrote: post #19
jmward01 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You prepare for the 9.0 earthquake that can happen once in 500 years because it is a 9.0 earthquake and if you haven't prepared your society is dead, not because you think it will most likely happen in your lifetime.

Most countries don't prepare for earthquakes. Only countries that get earthquakes do. YAGNI - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it

Not entirely true. Australian emergency services routinely prep for earthquake despite having only one or two decent shakes causing mass damage in recorded post colonisation history.

That prep doesn't extend to building standards for higher magnitude quakes.

Appropriate prep is still important for a possible credible threat, even if it is likely to be a rare issue, and the magnitude of that prep differs by personal posture and exposure.

Re: France's Anssi Will Block PQC-Free Products from Certification Starting 2027

#40

Post by TacticalCoder »

tsimionescu wrote: post #8

I'm very curious how much people will look back on this frenzy of PQC migration panic by 2050 when, my bet, there still won't be any remotely viable QCs. The decade plus of even slower TLS negotiation that this will bring in the name of "security", after so much time spent previously on improving encrypted connection latency, will seem quite comical, at least.

> I'm very curious how much people will look back on this frenzy of PQC migration panic by 2050 when, my bet, there still won't be any remotely viable QCs.

The funny thing is there's, for the foreseeable future (decades), no viable QCs at all expect breaking non-QC cryptography.

And should breaking non-QC cryptography become even remotely possible, the effect is going to be that everything is going to shift, like SSH, to an hybrid solution with two algos: good old non-QC resistant algo and new fancy QC-resistant algo.

So basically QC will have achieved jack shit besides moving everybody to use two algos instead of one.

In 2060 you'll have one device able to use quantum computing to break some messages from 2030, incriminating old senile or long dead politicians, that nobody will give any shit about.

That's the weirdest thing about this whole thing: the only viable QC we hear about is "breaking cryptography" but as soon as that becomes a possibility, we'll all be moving (just like TFA and OpenSSH are showing btw) to QC-resistant algos.

Making QC non-viable.

So... Besides cracking old obsolete message, what the heck can QC be used for?

I mean: what good are those machines going to bring the world, besides cracking old messages nobody cares about and besides making every switch to QC-resistant schemes (like hybrid old+new algos)?

Post reply on HN