Peter Gutmann: Quantum Cryptanalysis Is Flawed 🔐

New Zealand's cute infosec con (& book publishers) ✨ https://kawaiicon.org
Live Stream VOD from Kawaiicon III (6th - 8th November 2025)

Over the last few years quantum cryptanalysis and the quantocalypse has been receiving a lot of attention. This talk looks at the quantocalypse and the implications for quantum cryptanalysis using purely evidence-based empirical sources without resorting to fallacies like appeal to authority and sky-is-falling speculation. The result is summarised by the title of the talk, “Why Quantum Cryptanalysis is Bollocks”, acting as a response to ongoing media hysteria about a problem which all the empirical evidence shows doesn’t exist.

About Peter Gutmann:
Peter Gutmann is a researcher in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland working on design and analysis of cryptographic security architectures, security usability, and embedded systems security. He helped write the popular PGP encryption package, has authored a number of papers and RFC’s on security and encryption including serving as the final editor of the world’s longest-running security RFC, RFC 8894, and is the author of the open source cryptlib security toolkit, the book “Cryptographic Security Architecture: Design and Verification”, and an upcoming book “Engineering Security”.