Three Quantum Leaps in the Development of Information Security

摘要

This paper gives a coarse overview of the historical development of algorithms used for information security. It is shown that the development of these encryption algorithms has been made in small incremental steps for almost 2000 years until the latter part of the last century when three revolutionary inventions were made. The main properties of these new technologies, the public key encryption method, quantum cryptography and quantum computing are explained and demonstrates why they can be seen as quantum leaps in the development of information security.