Quantum Computing and Data Protection

A good (and short) article on quantum computing with references to other articles regarding the rapid pace of advances can be found here. 

The article mentions that U.S. defense and intelligence agencies see quantum computing as the foundation for the IT industry in the mid-21st century; it also notes that U.S. defense and intelligence agencies are concerned with national security issues. Why? Because a programmable quantum computer renders the two mainstream public-key crypto systems useless. Both RSA and ECC (elliptic curve cryptography) algorithms would be cracked and unable to protect any data, period.

NIST, University of Bristol, Google, and others are spending hundreds of millions of dollars researching quantum computing; simultaneously, the forward-thinking intelligence community is researching post-quantum cryptography to try and head off the looming threat.

What was once view as science fiction and decades away is fast approach — some now argue only several years away. And you thought moving to RSA 2048 was painful? Better start looking for other public-key crypto systems while you’re at it. And, btw, some of the lattice-based crypto systems are orders of magnitude faster than RSA today — long-term security and performance improvements… there’s a winner!