A Riddle Wrapped in an Enigma

In August 2015, the NSA released a major policy statement on the need for postquantum 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 statement's wording and timing have given rise to much speculation concerning the NSA, elliptic curve cryptography, and quantum-safe cryptography. In this article, the authors evaluate some of the theories that have been proposed.