The ninth annual Science on the Hill event will bring together policy leaders and scientists in a panel discussion in quantum computing.
What happens when encryption is essentially meaningless? Digital security experts around the world have their eyes fixed on the Y2Q—“Years to Quantum”—clock, which ticks down the time until the projected date when a quantum computer will be able to break an essential form of modern cryptography. Called public-key cryptography, it keeps your credit card number safe when you shop online and ensures that your phone's software update is coming from the phone company and not a hacker. But a quantum computer would render the standard types of public-key cryptography useless. And for governments and other institutions that need to keep secrets for the long term, the real deadline is much sooner, because if encrypted data sent today get stored, then a future quantum computer could retroactively decrypt the messages. How should policymakers be planning now to address what's coming?
