How to preserve secrets in a quantum age
You need new mathematical ideas, some of which have just been standardised
It is not often that a bit of mind-bending mathematics can avert disaster. But researchers at America’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (nist) have done their bit: last week, after years of analysis, they gave their stamp of approval to some equations that might, in time, save untold petabytes of sensitive data from prying eyes.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Secrets squirrelled”
From the July 16th 2022 edition
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