It reminds me a lot of Y2K. The fix is simple, but finding the places where it's needed and doing it in a compatible way are absolutely non-trivial problems. The best we can hope is the same as Y2K: the plethora of articles convince businesses to invest large amounts of money to migrate algorithms, so that when a quantum computer arrives it won't be a big deal.

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CatMustard 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> it won't be a big deal.

This isn't a space I know too much about, but even if we all start using quantum-safe encryption for everything today, won't the arrival of quantum computers that can break traditional encryption not still be a big deal?

Given that intelligence agencies, tech companies and various bad actors have been storing encrypted data for a long time, hoping to decrypt when (if?) that day comes?

	▲	parsimo2010 42 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Intelligence agencies and companies for which industrial espionage is an actual concern will re-encrypt their data storage, or have already done so. The only risk is on data that was already obtained with a vulnerable encryption. So there is some risk that a few secrets are lost, but it won’t be everything. And if you were to start now and quantum decryption isn’t viable for a decade then any secrets that do get exposed are surely less of a problem than if they were discovered today.
	▲	BoppreH an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Definitely, but then the damage is limited to the encrypted data that those actors managed to intercept some years before. Compared to QC arriving to an unprepared world, that's a very limited impact.