I consider myself a quiet guy — on a Friday night you can usually find me at home doing crossword puzzles. Public speaking doesn’t come naturally to me, and I’ve never really liked it. Like many people, I get really nervous. So, how did I find myself standing at a podium in front of hundreds of people in Fukuoka, Japan?
I had never traveled that far away from home before. I was also pretty jet-lagged, as I had flown to Fukuoka the day prior. But there I was, giving the opening talk at PQCrypto 2016, the latest in a series of conferences in post-quantum cryptography (PQC). To add to my anxiety, I thought most of the audience knew more about PQC than I did.
Despite these circumstances, I managed to do what I was there to do: announce that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was kicking off an international competition to find new quantum-resistant cryptographic systems. To read more, click here.