Store Now, Decrypt Later: The Truth Singularity

When one considers the disruptions that future technologies might bring, it is sometimes challenging to discern the nuanced ways in which the past, present, and future interact. For this topic in particular, that interaction is a key element. Part of me wonders if, as quantum technology advances, we will encounter more of these "Anachronistic Conundrums."

One reason why quantum computing could be immensely disruptive, besides its potential general effect on all currently existing encryption, involves a concept known as "Store Now, Decrypt Later." This concept posits that traffic across the internet from past decades has been captured and stored by various parties around the world. Currently, this traffic is essentially noise; decrypting a single file might take decades or centuries. Making sense of any sufficiently encrypted data through brute force is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Yet, with sufficiently advanced quantum computing, the current decryption times could drop from hundreds of years to perhaps minutes or seconds. This, in theory, doesn't need to be an issue for information that needs to be encrypted in the present or future. However, it is impossible to 're-encrypt' data that has already been stored or harvested through network snooping.

Now, to make sense of my initial comment about the interplay of past, present, and future: For the "Truth Singularity" to occur, it was necessary for data that exists in the present, encrypted with technology from the past, to be decrypted with technology from the future.