• “When will we be secure? Nobody knows for sure – but it cannot happen before commercial security products and services possess not only enough functionality to satisfy customers’ stated needs, but also sufficient assurance of quality, reliability, safety, and appropriateness for use. Such assurances are lacking in most of today’s commercial security products and services.”

    Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), "We need Assurance", 2005

    Read more...
  • "One often hears recommendations for key-sizes of public-key cryptosystems needed to obtain security for 30 years and even 50 years. Anyone wanting a real security of this magnitude should probably take the construction of the quantum computer into consideration."

    ECRYPT, “D.PROVI.3 – First Summary Report on Unconditionally Secure Protocols”, January 2005

    Read more...
  • “Never underestimate the attention, risk, money and time that an opponent will put into reading traffic.”

    Robert Morris, former Chief Scientist of the US National Security Agency (NSA), National Computer Security Center, "Crypto '95 invited talks by R. Morris and A. Shamir", 1995

    Read more...
Home Resources Expert Opinions Quantum computing quote: Brian Snow, Public key crypto would essentially be flat-lined by quantum computing
quote: Brian Snow, Public key crypto would essentially be flat-lined by quantum computing

Now for key management purposes (key exchanges, digital signatures), against the RSA and the Diffie-Hellman and stuff (ECC), they flat-line under a quantum computer. It’s not just a cut the key size in half.

So this becomes an invitation to the research community to get cracking
lads. We need new algorithms that are robust at least to the square root factor under a quantum computer attack that can be used for non-repudiation, and public key processes.  Open problem. Aching problem – work on it, please!

Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), Public Key Cryptography 30th Anniversary Conference, Dec 2006

 

Related Items