Quantum Crypography

We had Michele Mosca come talk to us yesterday in my Applied Crypotography course. He was my prof for Introduction to Combinatorics. He can be a funny guy. He’ll crack a lot of jokes, but just keep talking like nothing funny was said. Yeasterday he talked about quatum computing and how it applied to computational complexity and cryptography. About computational complexity really comes down to physical capabilities and how quatum theory fundamentally changes what is thought to be possible. If/when quatum computers can be created all the classical cryptography stuff I’ve learned will be rubish. I was talking abou this with a friend a while back. What will happen then? With all the talk of WMD, could quatum computers fit under this category. Everything encrypted with classical cyptography will need to be reencrypted with quatum cryptography. This would definitely take a long time. And until that time all financial instituations, governments, etc would be vulnerable. Talk about complete chaos. Not that I necissary think that’s the way it will turn out, but it is definitly interesting to think about.