Root Causes Podcast

Jason walks us through an important recent paper from Google tracking the cost of quantum factoring.

Microsoft has finally announced that it will offer an update to Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS, formerly MSCA) to support post quantum cryptography. We discuss Microsoft's checkered support for ADCS and offer some questions users should be asking.

Tim describes how the addition of an item to the CABF face-to-face meeting agenda blew up into a panicked and outraged online thread. We discuss what a more functional response would have looked like.

We continue our discussion of CPS misalignment by discussing the reasons for revocation as a remedy, its disadvantages, and the possibility of another solution that provides the same benefits at less cost.

We examine the circumstance where otherwise allowed practices are out of alignment with the stated practices in the relevant CPS. We discuss CA transparency and accountability, increased scrutiny of the CPS, and mass revocation.

We follow up on our discussion of the Get off My Lawn (GoTM) browser with Jason's adventure in creating his own custom root store.

We define CPS (Certificate Practices Statement) and explain the role it plays in both the WebPKI and private CAs.

The first CA distrust event of 2025 comes with two simultaneous CA distrusts. We give you the details.

For the first time ever, Jason and I record an episode from the floor of the CA/Browser Forum face-to-face meeting. We recap the themes of this meeting, and Jason gives his first impressions of a CABF Face-to-face.

In this episode we explain the potential for future quantum computers to break files signed today with RSA or ECC, called "Trust now, forge later."

Jason describes his recent experience using Amazon Braket.

In this episode Jason explains the fallacy of "playing chicken" with the Quantum Apocalypse. We discuss stack ranking and "eyes open" PQC risk decisions.

In this brief episode we explain why the problem that Shor's Algorithm poses to RSA and ECC can't be solved simply by increasing key size.

Wow. It's episode 500 of Root Causes. Jason and Tim talk about how the podcast has evolved in the past six years, how it has remained consistent, and the updates we're making to keep being a valuable resource for our listeners.

The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has released new PQC guidance. We take exception to the dates it gives and explain why.