[Cryptography] quantum computers & crypto

[Peter Gutmann]

Joshua Marpet <Joshua.Marpet at guardedrisk.com> writes:

>I literally just (yesterday) had a conversation with a financial institution
>about this. They have a firm that does periodical updates to them of "what's
>coming", and they were told that in 2022, they better have budget for quantum
>decryption defense. Otherwise, they're behind the curve!!

Banking is a bit special, I talked to a banking security person many years ago
about why they were mandating ludicrous-speed algorithms and key sizes and he
said that even though they know that X is safe, they have to be extremely
conservative and will therefore mandate additional unnecessary Y even though
they know it's, well, not necessary.  You can see examples of this in many of
the X9 standards.

So finance is more of a Ripley's odditorium of crypto than something to
emulate.  They have their reasons for doing things, but they're operating in a
very different world than the rest of us.

Peter.