International Association
for Cryptologic Research

In August 2015 the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) released a major policy statement on the need for post-quantum

cryptography (PQC). This announcement will be a great stimulus to the development, standardization, and commercialization of new quantum-safe algorithms. However, certain peculiarities in the wording and timing of the statement have puzzled many people and given rise to much speculation concerning the NSA, elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), and quantum-safe cryptography. Our purpose is to attempt to evaluate some of the theories that have been proposed.