Applicability of QKD: TerraQuantum view on the NSA's scepticism

TL;DR

This paper argues that skepticism towards quantum key distribution (QKD) by the NSA is unjustified, emphasizing QKD's unique security features and addressing misconceptions about its practicality and superiority over quantum-resistant cryptography.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed critique of NSA's skepticism towards QKD, clarifying its security advantages and practical applicability from TerraQuantum's perspective.

Findings

QKD offers provably secure communication with unique quantum features.

NSA's skepticism is not well justified based on current understanding.

QKD's practical implementation can be advantageous over quantum-resistant cryptography.

Abstract

Quantum communication offers unique features that have no classical analog, in particular, it enables provably secure quantum key distribution (QKD). Despite the benefits of quantum communication are well understood within the scientific community, the practical implementations sometimes meet with scepticism or even resistance. In a recent publication [1], NSA claims that QKD is inferior to "quantum-resistant" cryptography and does not recommend it for use. Here we show that such a sceptical approach to evaluation of quantum security is not well justified. We hope that our arguments will be helpful to clarify the issue.