Cryptography in a post-quantum world: why our encryption now has a use-by date, and what we need to do about it.

Quantum computers are already a reality. Among their other capabilities, they have demonstrated their ability to efficiently crack encrypted messages. Their power is currently increasing exponentially, with no end in sight; within the foreseeable future they will be able to crack virtually all of the world’s current encryption algorithms. Intelligence agencies around the world are already hoovering-up encrypted messages because, even though they're uncrackable today, soon they will all be readable with ease. Cryptography as we know it is, officially, deprecated.

This talk will explore what privacy looks like in a post-quantum world. It will:

• describe the capabilities of current quantum machines, explain why they’re so good at codebreaking, and predict when our current algorithms are likely to fall;
• describe the impact of quantum computation on our current encrypted communications, cryptocurrencies, and authentication systems;
• explore some of the developments in “post-quantum classical cryptography”, and why you should be preparing to deploy them today;
• discuss some of the developments in quantum communication which will enable planet-scale, absolutely uncrackable messaging.