Post-quantum posture

Shor breaks keys. Grover only dents hashes.

An evidence chain is not a secret — it is a commitment. That distinction decides which of this platform's primitives a quantum computer would actually threaten, and this page walks each one, then recomputes the evidence root three ways in your own browser.

Live lab · runs entirely on your device

One evidence set. Three digest families. Two tree shapes.

Algorithm checklist

The standardised algorithms, their parameter sizes, and where each one sits here

Post-quantum and classical algorithms with standard, purpose, security level, key and output sizes, and adoption status.
AlgorithmStandardPurposeLevelPublic keySecret keyOutputStatus
ML-KEM-768CRYSTALS-KyberFIPS 203 (2024)Key establishmentNIST category 31 184 B2 400 B1 088 B ciphertext · 32 B shared secretadopted
ML-KEM-1024Kyber-1024FIPS 203Key establishmentNIST category 51 568 B3 168 B1 568 B ciphertextplanned
ML-DSA-65CRYSTALS-Dilithium3FIPS 204 (2024)Digital signatureNIST category 31 952 B4 032 B3 309 B signatureplanned
SLH-DSA-SHA2-128sSPHINCS+FIPS 205 (2024)Digital signature128-bit classical32 B64 B7 856 B signatureevaluating
FN-DSA (Falcon-512)FalconFIPS 206 (draft)Digital signatureNIST category 1897 B1 281 B666 B signatureevaluating
AES-256-GCMRijndaelFIPS 197 / SP 800-38DSymmetric256-bit classical · ~128-bit post-Grover32 B16 B authentication tagadopted
SHA-384 / SHA-512SHA-2 familyFIPS 180-4Hash192 / 256-bit collision · halved preimage under Grover48 B / 64 B digestadopted
RSA-2048 / ECDSA P-256Classical public keyFIPS 186-5Digital signature112 / 128-bit classical · broken by Shor256 B / 64 B256 B / 64 B signaturenot applicable
  • A-01 · ML-KEM-768

    Used inside hybrid TLS as X25519MLKEM768, so a session needs both the lattice and the elliptic-curve half to be broken.

  • A-02 · ML-KEM-1024

    Reserved for long-lived archive transfers, where a decade of harvest-now-decrypt-later exposure is the realistic threat.

  • A-03 · ML-DSA-65

    Target for signing attestation bundles when a signature is added. Today bundles carry no signature at all, so nothing can be forged.

  • A-04 · SLH-DSA-SHA2-128s

    Hash-based, so its security rests on SHA-2 rather than a lattice assumption — the conservative fallback if lattice cryptanalysis advances.

  • A-05 · FN-DSA (Falcon-512)

    Smallest post-quantum signature; held back until the standard is final and constant-time implementations are widely audited.

  • A-06 · AES-256-GCM

    Grover halves effective key strength, so AES-256 lands where AES-128 sits classically. No migration needed.

  • A-07 · SHA-384 / SHA-512

    Every evidence root is published under SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512 from one preimage, so raising the floor is a selection rather than a re-chain.

  • A-08 · RSA-2048 / ECDSA P-256

    Never load-bearing for evidence integrity here. Where certificates use it, exposure is bounded by short certificate and session lifetimes.

Threat timeline

What is already true, what is mandated, and what is only an estimate

  1. 2024

    observed

    The standards landed

    NIST published FIPS 203, 204 and 205, making ML-KEM, ML-DSA and SLH-DSA usable in procurement language rather than research papers.

  2. 2025 – 2026

    observed

    Hybrid key agreement becomes the default

    Major browsers and edge networks ship X25519MLKEM768 on by default, so most traffic gets post-quantum key establishment without any application change.

  3. By 2030

    mandated

    Deprecation of classical public key begins

    NIST IR 8547 sets 2030 for deprecating RSA-2048 and ECC P-256 in new systems, with full disallowance by 2035. Inventory and migration plans are expected well before that.

  4. By 2035

    mandated

    Government migration deadline

    US NSM-10 and the EU coordinated roadmap both target 2035 for high-value systems to complete migration; regulated sectors will be asked for evidence sooner.

  5. 2030s (uncertain)

    projected

    A cryptographically relevant quantum computer

    Expert surveys put a machine able to break RSA-2048 somewhere in the 2030s with wide disagreement. Anyone quoting a precise year is selling something.

  6. Retroactive

    observed

    Harvest now, decrypt later

    Encrypted traffic recorded today can be opened whenever that machine arrives. The deadline for confidentiality is therefore already past; integrity commitments do not share this problem.

Dated mandates are quoted from published policy; capability dates are expert estimates and are labelled as such. Nothing on this page claims to know when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer arrives.

Upgrade path

How to migrate — the eight steps, and which are already done here

  1. U-01 · complete

    Inventory every cryptographic dependency

    List each primitive by what it protects, how long that protection must hold, and whether Shor or Grover applies. Confidentiality with a long shelf life migrates first.

    The primitive register below is that inventory, published rather than filed.

  2. U-02 · complete

    Separate commitments from secrets

    Integrity commitments only need collision resistance and survive quantum attack; secrets need key agreement and do not. Sorting them stops one migration from blocking the other.

    Attestation bundles are hash-only, so verification never touches a quantum-breakable key.

  3. U-03 · complete

    Turn on hybrid key agreement

    Serve TLS with X25519MLKEM768 so a recorded session needs both halves broken. This is an edge configuration, not an application rewrite.

    Negotiated wherever the visiting browser offers it; the classical half remains the floor.

  4. U-04 · complete

    Publish roots under several digest families at once

    Commit the same preimage under SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512 so raising the hash floor later is a choice of column, not a re-chain of history.

    The live lab above recomputes all three, linear and Merkle, in your own browser.

  5. U-05 · complete

    Bound the lifetime of anything signed classically

    Keep session tokens and certificates short-lived with server-side revocation, so a key broken in a future decade cannot forge a credential that already expired.

    Portal sessions are minutes-to-hours with revocation on the server.

  6. U-06 · complete

    Make crypto choices swappable

    Reference algorithms through one module so a parameter change is a single edit, and record the algorithm used inside every artefact it produces.

    Digest family is named in each published root, so a reader never has to guess.

  7. U-07 · planned

    Add ML-DSA signatures over bundles

    When downstream systems require a signature rather than a recomputable root, sign with ML-DSA-65 and keep the hash root as the primary check.

    Planned. Not yet implemented — bundles are hash-only today, and that is stated as such.

  8. U-08 · planned

    Re-test and re-attest on a schedule

    Re-run the root computation, confirm negotiated key exchange, and re-check the inventory whenever a standard or parameter set changes.

    Ongoing. The lab makes the check reproducible by anyone, not just by us.

Primitive register

Which primitive does what, and what a quantum adversary does to it

PQ-01

Evidence chain and attestation roots

SHA-256 → SHA-384/512 hash chain

weakened

Grover's algorithm reduces a preimage search from 2^256 to roughly 2^128 operations — still far beyond any projected machine. Collision resistance, which is what a tamper-evident chain relies on, is barely affected.

Roots are published under SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512 from the same preimage, so a future migration is a selection, not a rebuild.

PQ-02

Transport of every page and API response

TLS 1.3 key agreement (X25519)

broken

Shor's algorithm breaks elliptic-curve key agreement outright. Traffic recorded today could be decrypted retroactively once a capable machine exists — the harvest-now, decrypt-later problem.

Served over hybrid X25519MLKEM768 wherever the edge and the browser both offer it: a classical and a lattice key exchange combined, so the session survives either one failing.

PQ-03

Session authentication for the client portal

Signed session tokens (ECDSA/HMAC)

weakened

Signature keys are Shor-vulnerable, but session lifetimes are minutes to hours. A key broken in a future decade cannot forge a token that already expired.

Short-lived tokens plus server-side revocation keep the exposure window bounded independently of the signature algorithm.

PQ-04

Evidence at rest in the private store

AES-256-GCM

unaffected

Grover halves the effective key strength of a symmetric cipher, leaving AES-256 at roughly 128 bits — the level AES-128 provides classically, and the level standards bodies still consider sound.

No migration required. AES-256 was already chosen over AES-128 for this reason.

PQ-05

Downloadable attestation bundles

Hash-only, no signature

unaffected

A bundle carries no signature to forge: it is re-verified by recomputing the root from the digests and outcomes it contains, in the reader's own browser.

Verification needs no key, no certificate and no trusted third party — so there is nothing quantum-vulnerable in the verification path.

PQ-06

Randomness in simulation and audit sampling

Deterministic seeded PRNG

unaffected

Simulation randomness is deliberately reproducible so a reviewer can re-run a scenario and get the identical chain head. It is not used as a secret.

Secrecy never depends on this generator; anything security-bearing uses the platform CSPRNG.

Hybrid key agreement depends on what the serving edge and the visiting browser both support, so it is a deployment posture rather than a guarantee. No cryptographic choice makes a system impossible to breach — see the trust and audit register for what is claimed and what is not.

Reasoning architecture

Five layers between a model's confidence and a real-world action

L1

Bounded authority

Every model output is issued at an authority level fixed before the model runs. Certainty can narrow what an employee may do; it can never widen it.

L2

Adversarial self-check

Each material recommendation is re-argued against itself: the strongest case for refusing is generated before the case for acting is accepted.

L3

Evidence linkage

A conclusion without a linked artefact is treated as unsupported and downgraded, no matter how confident the model reports itself to be.

L4

Deterministic gates

Credentials, cancellation state and financial completeness are checked by code, not by inference. A gate failure ends the path.

L5

Reconstructable record

Model identity, policy version, inputs, confidence and outcome are recorded so any decision can be replayed months later.

The same architecture is visible working in the operations console and re-verifiable in the attestation studio.