>if a government could spend $800B and prove/create a machine that makes asymmetric cryptography impossible - and will be reverse-engineered and known to the world within 3 years of when they start using it, they probably would.
The alternative is waiting 10 years for academia to discover the vulnerability, the whole time risking that an even worse organization will discover and exploit it.
Ideally they would spend the $800B breaking it, along with another $200B developing something to replace it before it goes public. Even if they don't do the second part, it's still no worse than what would happen eventually anyway.
The alternative is waiting 10 years for academia to discover the vulnerability, the whole time risking that an even worse organization will discover and exploit it.
Ideally they would spend the $800B breaking it, along with another $200B developing something to replace it before it goes public. Even if they don't do the second part, it's still no worse than what would happen eventually anyway.