Why Classical Security Is Quietly Running Out of Time

Since the conception and then construction of the first quantum computer in 1998, classical computers have always been at a disadvantage to the raw performance that quantum computers can execute, especially with large numbers. The modern basis for many encryption schemes currently in use relies on the fact that Classical computers will take much too long to solve problems with large integers as their basis.

Quantum computers, however, use their power of superposition (Uncertainty of electron states until observed) to generate solutions to classical computer encryption at a significantly faster rate than normal silicon and binary computers. Silicon computers have been in use for decades.

In contrast, quantum computers are now slowly becoming much more mainstream, with more and more such devices being constructed to assist in solving real-world problems that simple binary has had issues with computing in reasonable amounts of time.

Because of the inherent nature of qubits to be set up to solve complex problems and utilize uncertainty to collapse measurements into coherent responses, A large number of factorization and other similar problems are quickly solved by quantum computers.

These same math problems are the basis of the majority of current encryption schemes like RSA and CCT (Certificate Chain of Trust). For the past eight years, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has held a competition to discover new encryption schemes.

At the end of the competition, there were four new standards that were patented and declared as standards for quantum-proof encryption. Unlike the chain of trust utilized by current internet security certificates as well as public and private key mathematics, all of these new encryption methods use uncertainty and randomness to ensure that upcoming quantum computers will not, down to the math and physics, be able to compute solutions in any reasonable amount of time.

As with all emerging technologies, there are growing pains with the new and interesting ways these discoveries change how we accomplish things. In the case of encryption vulnerability, this is a rolling change that is in motion.

This is not a case of a solution found, and there are no more problems. No, modern standards are changing and are slowly coming into practice, so that when the feared "q-day" comes to pass and quantum computers break what is currently known as secure, we will already have the tools in place to protect our data and privacy, if we work to adopt these across every vulnerable device.

Every single day, you use encryption. This is the fact, from when a text is sent to a friend, to when documents are shared across companies and hospitals, all the way to how modern banking is interacted with.

Every moment of our digital lives is protected by current encryption, but it will not last forever. The day will come when our new computers will solve the 'unsolvable' and everything will be open to anyone to see.

To guard ourselves from malicious actors obtaining sensitive and private information, we must move to a quantum-proof world.