Google is already fighting hackers from the future with post-quantum cryptography

For years, experts have warned users to use secure browser communications whenever possible. If you visit a site and the URL in your browser's address bar starts with "https://", you know the communication between your computer and the server is encrypted. 

But that encryption, according to Google, has a potential weakness. If quantum computers  get sufficiently powerful in the future, they could be used to break TLS, the cryptographic protocol that's one of the foundations of HTTPS. 

Worse, a future quantum computer might be able to retroactively decrypt today's internet communications. So Google is addressing the problem today by testing a post-quantum key exchange algorithm in Chrome, which should ideally protect from such future attempts.  Read more...