“a significant breakthrough in quantum computation would spell doom for all these systems (ECC-192 or RSA-2048).”

European Network of Excellence for Cryptography, "D.AZTEC.2 Alternatives to RSA", July 2005

“Assurance is best addressed during the initial design and engineering of security systems, NOT as an after market patch. The earlier you include a security architect in your design process, the greater the likely hood of a successful and robust design. As the quip goes, he who gets to the (module) interface first wins.”

Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), "We need Assurance", AusCERT 2008

Florence Luy asks the question: "Is the writing on the wall for 1024-bit (RSA) encryption?"
Dutch mathematician Hendrik Willem Lenstra: "The answer to that question is an unqualified yes."

Florence Luy, Hendrik Lenstra, “A mighty number falls”, 21 May 2007, École Polytechnicque Fédérale de Lausanne

"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

“Systems built without requirements cannot fail; They merely offer surprises. Usually unpleasant!

Robert Morris, former Chief Scientist of the US National Security Agency (NSA), National Computer Security Center, 1995

"The future ability of quantum computers might be a decade or two away, their future ability to break public-key cryptography has important implications for the encryption of highly sensitive information today. For these applications, we must already design new public-key cryptosystems and one-way functions that are immune to quantum cryptanalysis."

ARDA, Report of the Quantum Information Science and Technology Experts Panel, 2004

“The software security industry today is at about the same stage as the auto industry was in 1930" ... "it looks fast, goes nice but in an accident you die.” ... "The major shortfall is absence of assurance (or safety) mechanisms in software. If my car crashed as often as my computer does, I would be dead by now."

Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), "We need assurance!", 1999-2008

“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

“Given today’s common hardware and software architectural paradigms, operating systems security is a major primitive for secure systems – you will not succeed without it. This area is so important that it needs all the emphasis it can get. It is the current ‘black hole’ of security.”

Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), "We need assurance!", 1999-2008

“It's not good enough to have a system where everyone (using the system) must be trusted, it must also be made robust against insiders!”

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

"My colleagues at MIT and I have been building simple quantum computers and executing quantum algorithms since 1996, as have other scientists around the world. Quantum computers work as promised. If they can be scaled up, to thousands or tens of thousands of qubits from their current size of a dozen or so, watch out!”

Prof Seth Lloyd of MIT, MIT Review 2008

"Security and dependability issues typically go along with the life cycle of a technology.  The trend to first deploy a technology and later fix its problems – typically driven by economic motives – is gradually making way for security by design, resulting in improved security at the beginning of the life cycle."

"Some physicists predicted that within the next 10 to 20 years quantum computers will be built that are sufficiently powerful to implement Shor’s ideas and to break all existing public key schemes. Thus we need to look ahead to a future of quantum computers, and we need to prepare the cryptographic world for that future.”

Prof Seth Lloyd of MIT, MIT Review 2008

"Many applications stay in use for much longer than anticipated, but during the extended lifetime they will be functioning in an environment for which they have not been designed, resulting in completely new vulnerabilities and risks."

“The rapidly evolving field of quantum computers is one of the most active research areas of modern science, attracting substantial funding that supports research groups at internationally leading academic institutions, national laboratories, and major industrial-research centers.”

ARDA, Report of the Quantum Information Science and Technology Experts Panel, 2004

“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

"There is a good chance that large quantum computers can be built within the next 20 years.  This would be a nightmare for IT security if there are no fully developed, implemented, and standardized post-quantum signature schemes."

Prof. Johannes Buchmann, et al, “Post-Quantum Signatures”, Oct 2004, Technische Universität Darmstadt