Hearing Schneier say this is oddly comforting to me:

While I like the science of quantum cryptography — my undergraduate degree was in physics — I don’t see any commercial value in it. I don’t believe it solves any security problem that needs solving. I don’t believe that it’s worth paying for, and I can’t imagine anyone but a few technophiles buying and deploying it. Systems that use it don’t magically become unbreakable, because the quantum part doesn’t address the weak points of the system.

I guess I’d basically been thinking that quantum crypto would kick off a privacy battle that would make the controversy over Diffie-Hellman look tame.

But I have to ask — does it make me into a conspiracy theorist to think the stuff about quantum computing is just optimism?

Pretty serious stuff, but years away from being practical. I think the best quantum computer today can factor the number 15.

I have a hard time believing that the boys at the NSA don’t have something like this that they just haven’t told anyone about. But maybe that’s just me buying into the mystique of the USA’s premiere spook agency.