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raw23 | 8 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but The article doesn't describe how 'classical' cryptography will survive quantum computers. It merely describes how it will break RSA and then lightly covers a potential alternative quantum proof public private key cryptography scheme.

Misleading title?

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dsacco|8 years ago

This is a good point. I found the article's content disappointing, to be honest. I think it hit a bit of an uncanny valley - it was too shallow to be comprehensive for a technical math/computer science audience, but too deep (and emphasizing the wrong things) to cover the ground in a way that would be appropriate for a non-technical audience.

If I were to write an article like this, I would probably choose a more explicit audience from the outset, then cover either a depth-first or breadth-first approach to the subject. A breadth-first approach would be good for a non-technical audience: here are the general types of cryptosystems, here are the ones threatened by quantum computers, here are the ones that are not, here are the current proposals for post-quantum resistant cryptosystems.

On the other hand, were I writing for a technical audience I would assume an understanding of why quantum computers threaten classical cryptography (and why e.g. symmetric encryption is mostly safe), then take a deeper look at each of the post-quantum proposals.