Cryptography Apocalypse

5What Will a Post-Quantum World Look Like?

When quantum supremacy and the forthcoming quantum crypto break happens, the world will change forever. There will be the world’s history before and the world’s incredible future after. Most changes will not happen instantly but instead will happen across a multitude of timelines based on different uses and applications. Some will happen within timelines measured in weeks and months and others over years and decades. But far-reaching, momentous change is coming.

This chapter covers the likely changes starting by concentrating on what applications quantum computing is likely to break in the near term (the focus of this book), followed by all the new or improved devices and applications that we will see because of quantum properties. Like most other previous significant technological advances, the changes can and will be used for both good and evil. Quantum computing will impact us in many ways, not just by breaking cryptographic secrets. After covering the breaks and improvements related directly to cryptography, this chapter will explore all the wonderful new inventions and improvements we will see beyond the crypto issues.

NOTE  The word application in this chapter is used to denote any type of implementation of technologies and not just software programs.

Broken Applications

The primary reason for this book is all the computing applications using current technology, algorithms, protocols, and ciphers, which will be weakened or completely ...