• The software security industry today is at about the same stage as the auto industry was in 1930" ... "it looks fast, goes nice but in an accident you die.” ... "The major shortfall is absence of assurance (or safety) mechanisms in software. If my car crashed as often as my computer does, I would be dead by now."

    Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), "We need assurance!", 1999-2008

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  • Build-in Security: Ensure that security is considered and built into the design of new infrastructure, so that our critical assets are protected from the start and more resilient to naturally-occurring and deliberate threats throughout their life-cycle."

    Obama-Biden Plan, Agenda: Homeland Security, December 2008

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  • "Many applications stay in use for much longer than anticipated, but during the extended lifetime they will be functioning in an environment for which they have not been designed, resulting in completely new vulnerabilities and risks."

    SecurIST, “D3.3 – ICT Security & Dependability Research beyond 2010: Final Strategy”, January 2007
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Home Resources Expert Opinions Quantum computing quote: Brian Snow, Public key crypto would essentially be flat-lined by quantum computing
quote: Brian Snow, Public key crypto would essentially be flat-lined by quantum computing

Now for key management purposes (key exchanges, digital signatures), against the RSA and the Diffie-Hellman and stuff (ECC), they flat-line under a quantum computer. It’s not just a cut the key size in half.

So this becomes an invitation to the research community to get cracking
lads. We need new algorithms that are robust at least to the square root factor under a quantum computer attack that can be used for non-repudiation, and public key processes.  Open problem. Aching problem – work on it, please!

Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), Public Key Cryptography 30th Anniversary Conference, Dec 2006

 

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