Root Causes Podcast

We describe three different kinds of logical qubits with their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Jason explains the extreme danger of side channel attacks in the new post quantum cryptography (PQC) era.

The reliability of cryptographic algorithms is largely a matter of conjecture based on track record. Proving security is impaired by the difficulty of formal verification, implementation weaknesses, and failure in randomness.

Google has taken a strong position supporting Merkle Tree Certificates (MTC) as the PQC-enabled future for SSL / TLS.

A new paper from Google Quantum AI and others documents a new technique for breaking ECC, particularly the curve protecting crypto currencies, smart contracts, and blockchain. This accelerates post quantum cryptography (PQC) timelines.

New research suggests that a cryptographically relevant quantum computer is achievable with only 10,000 qubits. This was an important contributor to Google moving its PQC target to 2029.

Google has announced that it is moving its target for full PQC support to 2029. This is a strong statement from one of the most knowledgeable PQC technology companies that the existing 2030 target is too late.

CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) has released new guidance about post-quantum cryptography in critical infrastructure, including some sobering warnings.

We recently heard the argument that it's simply too expensive to develop a cryptographically relevant quantum computer. We vehemently disagree. In this episode we explain why.

The transition to PQC is not just a change in cryptographic algorithms but also a fundamental shift in how we treat our cryptography. From here on out, IT systems need to be fundamentally crypto agile as never before.

We expand on the concept of trust-now-forge-later to list a whole bevy of additional attacks that eventually will be enabled by cryptographically relevant quantum computers.

New research indicates that the number of qubits necessary to achieve cryptographic relevance has reduced by two orders of magnitude. We cover this breaking news and its implications.

We go over the qualities in abstract of a use case that strongly invites the use of hybrid certificates and then run down a list of specific use cases that meet these criteria. This includes OT systems, code signing, secure boot, WiFi, enterprise S/MIME, and more.

In this episode Jason declares that we must make cryptography boring again.  We get into what that means and why it matters.

We discuss the idea that it might be impossible to actually create a cryptographically relevant quantum computer and weigh in on this idea.

Repeat guest Chris McGrath shares what enterprises need to be doing now to stay on track for the NIST PQC deadline in 2030.

We name the ten enterprise environments and use cases that are most likely to be late adopters of post quantum cryptography (PQC).