Poll: Should governments be allowed to keep a quantum code breaking breakthrough secret

[Kane48]

TL;DR

• If a government built a quantum computer able to break today's encryption, it would face a hard choice between secrecy and disclosure
• History offers precedents: the codebreaking work at Bletchley Park stayed secret until 1974, and GCHQ's early invention of public key cryptography was only made public in 1997
• Governments already weigh similar choices for software flaws through processes such as the US Vulnerabilities Equities Process, whose charter was published in 2017
• Secrecy might protect national security in the short term, while disclosure would help everyone upgrade and protect citizens
• This poll asks where you stand, and there are thoughtful arguments on every side

The dilemma

Picture a government laboratory that quietly achieves the first quantum computer capable of breaking widely used public key encryption. Intelligence agencies would suddenly be able to read a great deal of foreign communication, including stored traffic collected years earlier. The advantage could be enormous. Yet the same weakness would also affect that country's own banks, hospitals and citizens

Should the government announce the breakthrough so that everyone can hurry to upgrade? Should it keep quiet and use the advantage while it lasts? Or should it tell only trusted allies and critical industries? This poll asks which approach you think is most justified, and the replies are for your reasoning

Lessons from history

Secrecy around codebreaking has a long history. The work of Alan Turing and thousands of colleagues at Bletchley Park in breaking German ciphers during the Second World War remained officially secret for decades. Public awareness grew only after Frederick Winterbotham published The Ultra Secret in 1974. Historians generally agree that the secrecy protected sources at the time, though it also delayed recognition for many who served

A more surprising example involves cryptography itself. In the early 1970s, GCHQ researchers James Ellis, Clifford Cocks and Malcolm Williamson developed the ideas behind public key cryptography. Their work stayed classified, and the world credited the independent public inventions of Diffie, Hellman, Rivest, Shamir and Adleman instead. GCHQ only acknowledged the earlier discovery in 1997

These stories show that governments can and do keep major cryptographic advances quiet. They also show that secrecy carries costs. Public credit, open research and wider economic benefits can all be delayed. A quantum breakthrough would raise these trade offs on a far larger scale

The case for secrecy

Supporters of secrecy argue that intelligence advantages save lives. Reading the communications of hostile states, terrorist groups or organised criminals can prevent attacks and inform diplomacy. Announcing a breakthrough would prompt adversaries to change their methods immediately. From this view, a brief window of advantage is worth protecting

They also note that disclosure could cause panic. If the world learned overnight that encryption was breakable, markets and public services might be disrupted. Quiet, coordinated upgrades could be safer than a dramatic announcement. Some argue for limited sharing with critical industries while keeping the capability itself hidden

The case for disclosure

Others argue that a government's first duty is to protect its own people. Every day of secrecy leaves citizens, businesses and allies exposed to the same weakness. Another country could reach the same capability soon after, and criminals might not be far behind. Disclosure would allow everyone to finish migrating to post quantum cryptography faster

There is a precedent for this kind of balancing. In 2017 the United States published the charter of its Vulnerabilities Equities Process, which decides whether to disclose software flaws to vendors or keep them for intelligence use. The UK published a description of its own equities process in 2018. Both say that disclosure is the default in most cases, while acknowledging exceptions

Questions to discuss

• Would secrecy be acceptable if the advantage lasted only a few months
• Should allies be told, even if the public is not
• Does the harvest now, decrypt later risk change your view
• Who should make the decision: intelligence agencies, elected leaders or independent oversight bodies

Closing thoughts

This is a hypothetical question, and the migration to post quantum cryptography is designed precisely so that such a secret would matter less. The sooner systems are upgraded, the smaller any secret advantage becomes. That makes the dilemma a good reason to support steady migration today. Vote, share your reasoning and please keep the discussion respectful


Further reading

• Frederick Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret, 1974
• GCHQ, The history of non-secret encryption, released 1997
• The White House, Vulnerabilities Equities Policy and Process for the United States Government, November 2017
• UK Government, The Equities Process, November 2018