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I'm not a crypto expert at all but I do have one question: If there is a concept of "quantum-safe" (which I did not know until reading this article), why hasn'

I'm not a crypto expert at all but I do have one question: If there is a concept of "quantum-safe" (which I did not know until reading this article), why hasn't the broader internet (HTTPS) adopted them? Is there any plans for there adoption in the future?

HNaTTY 13y ago
Quantum-safe in the same respect that an md5sum of an ISO cannot reveal the contents of the ISO.
JeremyBanks 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography My understanding is that schemes that would be resistant to quantum attacks are much less efficient, and have more negative tradeoffs, than the systems in use today. Speed is an important property for a most cryptography, so few people would adopt such a system until the threat seems more pressing.
frezik 13y ago
Block ciphers can be easily made quantum-safe by doubling the key size (see "Grover's Algorithm"). We might have to update everyone's browser to support extending AES to 512 bits, but it's doable. The real problem is public key ciphers that rely on prime number factorization. Eliptic curves are one solution, but the only people who seem to have in-depth knowledge about them are in the NSA.
KMag 13y ago
The mathematics are less well researched, and at least for some algorithms the keys are quite large. (For instance, a pretty standard sized Niederreiter key and a single Niederreiter signature put the minimum size for a certificate over 1 MB, which is a lot less onerous than it used to be, but a bit big for doing a lot of copying on cellular networks.) I haven't heard this expressed anywhere, but it could also be that the McEliece and Niederreiter algorithms have a bit of a feel to them like the Merkle-Hellman knapsack algorithm that was thought for a long time to be secure. Though, if you're being paranoid and can spare the cycles, it wouldn't hurt to take Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (or ECIES) exchange, encrypt that using RSA (or ElGamal), and then Encrypt that using Niederreiter (or McEliece), like a bunch of Russian dolls nested by key/message size. All three crypto systems would need to be broken in order to recover the key.

HNaTTY 13y ago

Quantum-safe in the same respect that an md5sum of an ISO cannot reveal the contents of the ISO.

JeremyBanks 13y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography My understanding is that schemes that would be resistant to quantum attacks are much less efficient, and have more negative tradeoffs, than the systems in use today. Speed is an important property for a most cryptography, so few people would adopt such a system until the threat seems more pressing.

frezik 13y ago

Block ciphers can be easily made quantum-safe by doubling the key size (see "Grover's Algorithm"). We might have to update everyone's browser to support extending AES to 512 bits, but it's doable. The real problem is public key ciphers that rely on prime number factorization. Eliptic curves are one solution, but the only people who seem to have in-depth knowledge about them are in the NSA.

KMag 13y ago

The mathematics are less well researched, and at least for some algorithms the keys are quite large. (For instance, a pretty standard sized Niederreiter key and a single Niederreiter signature put the minimum size for a certificate over 1 MB, which is a lot less onerous than it used to be, but a bit big for doing a lot of copying on cellular networks.) I haven't heard this expressed anywhere, but it could also be that the McEliece and Niederreiter algorithms have a bit of a feel to them like the Merkle-Hellman knapsack algorithm that was thought for a long time to be secure. Though, if you're being paranoid and can spare the cycles, it wouldn't hurt to take Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (or ECIES) exchange, encrypt that using RSA (or ElGamal), and then Encrypt that using Niederreiter (or McEliece), like a bunch of Russian dolls nested by key/message size. All three crypto systems would need to be broken in order to recover the key.