The us. National institute of standards and technology, or nist, in gaithersburg, maryland is set to make a decision on which algorithms will become standard. In the next couple of months, it will select a few winners and then publish official versions of those algaritms. Similar organizations in other countries, from france to china, will make their own announcements. But that will be only the beginning of a long process of updating the world's crypto systems,. A change that will affect aspect of our lives on line. Although the hope is that it will be invisible to the average internet user.
Almost everything we do on the Internet is made possible by cryptographic algorithms, which scramble our data to protect our privacy. However, this privacy could be under threat. If quantum computers reach their potential these machines could crack current encryption systems — leaving our online data vulnerable.
To limit the damage of this so called 'Q-day', researchers are racing to develop new cryptographic systems, capable of withstanding a quantum attack.
This is an audio version of our feature: The race to save the Internet from quantum hackers
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