Post #1773233

@dangoodin @filippo There are two major categories of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. (Why they are called that would extend this lecture quite a bit) The main thing is: symmetric encryption is (largely) hard to break due to the key, and all the transformations that happen as part of the encryption process. With asymmetric encryption, yes, the key is part of why it’s hard to break, but it’s also because there’s some *really funky math* going on. Like, the sort of math that was theoretically impossible for a very long time. And that very funky math works for encryption because it’s the sort of math that is hard for computers to do. Quantum computers (theoretically) are much better at that specific type of math. So they can potentially totally render useless most asymmetric encryption. But they don’t really provide an advantage with symmetric encryption.