Google hopes to thwart quantum computers from cracking today’s Internet encryption

The encryption methods used to secure today’s Internet communications won’t be impenetrable forever. More powerful “quantum computers” on the horizon could very well crack them.

That’s why Google is testing out new cryptography that computers in the future might not be able to break.  

The processing power offered by “hypothetical, future” quantum computers could  be enough to “decrypt any internet communication that was recorded today,” wrote Matt Braithwaite, a Google software engineer in a company blog post on Thursday.

This could affect the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol used when visiting websites. Old information, originally meant to be secured for decades, could suddenly become exposed, he added.

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