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Comment by commandersaki | Hacker News Reader

I didn't really find that the interesting part; more the (lack of) progress in cryptanalysis. I know there's been some brouhaha over the last few months that there's a target date for a CRQC (cryptographically relevant quantum computer) circa 2030. Rather than quibble about how it's feasible or how we should heed the threat, I'd rather just put money on it -- happy to bet anyone interested using the longbets platform.

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I don't really have a dog in the CRQC fight. But reasoning abductively: every cryptography I know is at least abstractly concerned about classical breaks, particularly within the last 18 months.

(There's a separate reason to be interested in "PQC" cryptography: even in the absence of a "full" classical break, most cryptographers agree that it's not ideal that all of our eggs are currently in one asymmetric cryptographic "basket," i.e. problems that generalize to the hidden subgroup problem. Asymmetric schemes whose hardness does not depend on a lack of solution to problems in that space seems like a reasonable thing to research and build.)

My problem is the hype and fearmongering surrounding PQ is that it's taken away mindshare and resources that could be used for more relevant things in the cryptography community like more better/useful primitives and schemes. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be attention coming up with PQC schemes but it shouldn't hog all the attention and be foisted everywhere. But again, I'm not seeing the classic crypto doomerism everyone else spouts.

What are those more relevant things cryptographers should be working on?

No idea, but if the funding wasn't concentrated in PQ both commercially and academically, it could be spread to other areas of tangible benefit. All I see is bloated key sizes, retrofitting and re-architecture for an issue that isn't even in its infancy. I see it as akin to how cryptocurrency has taken mindshare and resources and hasn't produced anything useful to users.

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