{"id":2220,"date":"2026-03-31T12:04:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T12:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/inventors-of-quantum-cryptography-win-turing-award\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T12:04:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T12:04:48","slug":"inventors-of-quantum-cryptography-win-turing-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/inventors-of-quantum-cryptography-win-turing-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Inventors of Quantum Cryptography Win Turing Award"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard have won<\/a> the 2026 Turing Award for inventing quantum cryptography.<\/p>\n

I am incredibly pleased to see them get this recognition. I have always thought the technology to be fantastic, even though I think it\u2019s largely unnecessary. I wrote up my thoughts back in 2008, in an <a href+https:\/\/www.schneier.com\/essays\/archives\/2008\/10\/quantum_cryptography.html\u201d>essay titled \u201cQuantum Cryptography: As Awesome As It Is Pointless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back then, I wrote:<\/p>\n

\n

While I like the science of quantum cryptography\u2014my undergraduate degree was in physics\u2014I don\u2019t see any commercial value in it. I don\u2019t believe it solves any security problem that needs solving. I don\u2019t believe that it\u2019s worth paying for, and I can\u2019t imagine anyone but a few technophiles buying and deploying it. Systems that use it don\u2019t magically become unbreakable, because the quantum part doesn\u2019t address the weak points of the system.<\/p>\n

Security is a chain; it\u2019s as strong as the weakest link. Mathematical cryptography, as bad as it sometimes is, is the strongest link in most security chains. Our symmetric and public-key algorithms are pretty good, even though they\u2019re not based on much rigorous mathematical theory. The real problems are elsewhere: computer security, network security, user interface and so on.<\/p>\n

Cryptography is the one area of security that we can get right. We already have good encryption algorithms, good authentication algorithms and good key-agreement protocols. Maybe quantum cryptography can make that link stronger, but why would anyone bother? There are far more serious security problems to worry about, and it makes much more sense to spend effort securing those.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve often said, it\u2019s like defending yourself against an approaching attacker by putting a huge stake in the ground. It\u2019s useless to argue about whether the stake should be 50 feet tall or 100 feet tall, because either way, the attacker is going to go around it. Even quantum cryptography doesn\u2019t \u201csolve\u201d all of cryptography: The keys are exchanged with photons, but a conventional mathematical algorithm takes over for the actual encryption.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What about quantum computation? I\u2019m not worried<\/a>; the math is ahead of the physics. Reports of progress in that area are overblown<\/a>. And if there\u2019s a security crisis because of a quantum computation breakthrough, it\u2019s because our systems aren\u2019t crypto-agile.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard have won the 2026 Turing Award for inventing quantum cryptography. I am incredibly pleased to see them get this recognition. I have always thought the technology to be fantastic, even though I think it\u2019s largely unnecessary. I wrote up my thoughts back in 2008, in an <a href+https:\/\/www.schneier.com\/essays\/archives\/2008\/10\/quantum_cryptography.html\u201d>essay titled \u201cQuantum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[90,920,842,921,53],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-2220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybersecurity","category-history-of-cryptography","category-quantum-computing","category-quantum-cryptography","category-uncategorized","tag-cybersecurity"],"yoast_head":"\nInventors of Quantum Cryptography Win Turing Award - Imperative Business Ventures Limited<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/inventors-of-quantum-cryptography-win-turing-award\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inventors of Quantum Cryptography Win Turing Award - Imperative Business Ventures Limited\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard have won the 2026 Turing Award for inventing quantum cryptography. 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