“Consider the use of smart cards ... for especially critical functions.  Although more costly than software, when properly implemented the assurance gain is great.  The form-factor is not as important as the existence of an isolated processor and address space for assured operations – an ‘Island of Security,’ if you will.  Such devices can communicate with each other through secure protocols and provide a web of security connecting secure nodes located across a sea of insecurity in the global net.”

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

"But conventional security is not enough. The complexity of today's operational environment means organisations must embrace a level of business resilience that is normally associated with the protection of critical national infrastructure."

Detica, a BAE Systems Company

"In the medium term, we need to be prepared for the eventuality that large quantum computers could be built: this would require an upgrade of most symmetric cryptographic algorithms and a completely new generation of public-key algorithms."

SecurIST, “D3.3 – ICT Security & Dependability Research beyond 2010: Final Strategy”, January 2007

"Given their power to intercept and disrupt secret communications, it is not surprising that quantum computers have the attention of various U.S. government agencies.  The National Security Agency, which supports research in quantum computing, candidly declares that given its interest in keeping U.S. government communications secure, it is loath to see quantum computers built. On the other hand, if they can be built, then it wants to have the first one.”

Prof Seth Lloyd of MIT, MIT Review 2008

"Even a relatively small quantum computer, one that had a few tens of thousands of qubits, could consider so many different values at once that it would be able to break all known [ed: RSA, D&H, ECC, AES-128] codes commonly used for secure Internet communication.”

Prof Seth Lloyd of MIT, MIT Review 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

“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

"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."

“Advances have often been done in steps, and beyond approximately 10 years into the future, the general feeling among ECRYPT partners is that recommendations made today should be assigned a rather small confidence level, perhaps in particular for asymmetric primitives.”

European ECRYPT Network of Excellence, “Yearly Report on Algorithms and Key Lengths (2007-2008)", 2008

“In the next five years we will counter many 'hacker' attacks but we will not be safe from Nation States and other large entities”

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

"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

"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

“We are a cyber nation. The U.S. information infrastructure--including telecommunications and computer networks and systems and the data that reside on them--is critical to virtually every aspect of modern life. This information infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to exploitation, disruption, and destruction by a growing array of adversaries.”

The National Coordination Office (NCO) for Networking Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD), Federal Register: December 30, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 250).

“Briefly and simply, assurance work makes a user or a creditor more confident that the system works as intended without flaws, without surprises, even in the presence of malice.” … “The major shortfall is absence of assurance or safety mechanisms in software.  If my car crashed as often as my computer does, I’d be dead by now.”

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

“Build-in Security: Ensure that security is considered and built into the design of new infrastructure, so that our critical assets are protected from the start and more resilient to naturally-occurring and deliberate threats throughout their life-cycle."

Obama-Biden Plan, Agenda: Homeland Security, December 2008

"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

“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