this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

"the industry’s first post-quantum encryption." What the hell is post-quantum encryption?

According to NIST this is something to be developed, not something Zoom has 'all of a sudden created' in the time between that question being asked, and the time the question was answered. SMH.

If you are curious, you can read up on it: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-quantum-cryptography

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I thought we already had post quantum encryption, or at least that's what some articles I read claimed

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Please elaborate. I'm def not up on the cutting edge of encryption. And I'd like to know more.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

it means cryptography with algorithms that will be resistant to quantum computers that are any good

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Thank you, I understand the goal in a broader sense, and definition. Are you aware of any methods, for instance, that Zoom, or anyone else, could actually be rolling out at this time?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This was back in 2022: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/why-google-now-uses-post-quantum-cryptography-for-internal-comms

But from what I understand Google claims to have rolled out an algorithm to Chrome users, I can't find the original article which lead to my first response to you, but this seems not too far from it

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I saw that article when I searched DDG. Thanks, I'll give it a look. :-)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

(I realize other comments downthread have already addressed some of this, no slight to others intended)

so, PQC is definitely not snakeoil, and it's actually seen uptake in a lot of things over recent years (just off the top of my head: openssh 9.0 in 2022, evolving work in implementations in TLS ciphers, etc (and as much as I fucking dislike cloudflare, they are actively funding a lot of forward-looking cryptographic work - thus being one to link to)). but as with all things cryptography, it's a moving and changing field

the industry's first post-quantum encryption

I suspect in this statement, "the industry" is load-bearing and inspecific, and resolves as "the industry of things that do what zoom do". it is a highly vague statement though, and I 🤨 at it being used as it was where it was

(e: I did look up their actual announcement about this; "UCaaS" kill me)

I'm reticent to make any further specific claims/statements re the rest of PQC, since while it is one of my areas of interest and in which I keep relatively informed, I'm also not a cryptographer by trade and consider my knowledge at best armchair-competent. pretty damn interesting field though, if you have any interest in math or cryptography it's well worth diving into it sometime :)