Every now and again I see an article like this pop up: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609408/quantum-computers-pose-imminent-threat-to-bitcoin-security/<p>Let's assume it's true. Public / Private keypair encryption (via cryptobox) is a big part of the backbone of an app I'm working on. Is there any way to future proof my crypto in case the Quantum Computers do destroy any security we thought we had?
More scientific research on the power of quantum computing against modern day encryption would need to be done. There are still only a small amount of companies with quantum computers, the bulk being defense contractors, top governments (U.S.A., China, Russia, Japan, Germany, India, Iran and Israel) and a few private sector focused companies (Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc.) and top research universities that are capable of doing the research. If there is a flaw found in the mathematics used for the current standard encryption algorithms, new algorithms would be created to take their place. As rolling your own crypto has always been bad practice if you did not have the proper mathematics background and work experience as a full-time cryptographer.<p>It may require new hardware or enhancements to hardware to accommodate the changes (e.g. AES instruction sets added to the x86, ARM, SPARC, MIPS, etc. processors) to help speed up the processing of encryption and decryption requests. When that time comes there will be a quick rush from vendors to patch and or upgrade systems when possible.
My question is what if someone is logging internet traffic right now to crack post-quantum? They'd have the formidable challenge of deciding what to log of all the stuff ... but spy agencies might be harvesting data for example.<p>Credit card transactions are ok but other secrets maybe not so ok.