Dedigitization
When quantum computing breaks everything.
You probably know someone who still keeps essential passwords scrawled on a post-it note stuck someplace. And you’ve probably urged them to set up a password manager and shred the note for God’s sake! But what if they’re on to something? They say that even a stopped watch is right twice a day. What if the post-its time has come back around again?
What if paper is safer than code?
As bitrot-prone as it is, I think we’ve been lulled into a sense of digital permanence. Whatever we save will last forever, preserved in perfect fidelity, accessible only to those who have permission to see it. This assumption underlies the way nearly every aspect of modern life has come to work, from banking to healthcare to personal communications. But here comes quantum computing, and it threatens to undo all of it.
When sufficiently powerful quantum computers arrive, they’ll be able to break most encryption we use today. And when that happens, our most precious secrets might find their safest home in an unexpected place: paper.
It sounds like the pitch for a TV show, I know. But this isn’t fantasy. Quantum computers leverage the strange properties of quantum mechanics to solve certain problems exponentially faster than classical computers. Among these problems is factoring large numbers — the mathematical operation that underlies most modern encryption. While current quantum computers aren’t yet powerful enough to break encryption, experts predict they will be within a decade. More concerning is that adversaries are already harvesting encrypted data, waiting for the day they can decrypt it.
(For a sobering assessment of where quantum computing and encryption stand today, see Shor’s Algorithm, D-Wave, Quantum-Resistant Algorithms, the NSA’s Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite 2.0, and RAND’s forecast of how this will all go down.)
This creates a new calculus around digital security: How long does information need to stay secret? For communications like text messages or emails, maybe a few years is enough. But what about medical records that should remain private for a lifetime? Or state secrets that need to remain confidential for generations? Or corporate intellectual property that must never be revealed?
For information that needs permanent protection, we might need to look backward to move forward. Paper — or other physical storage media — offers something digital storage cannot: security through physical rather than mathematical barriers. You can’t hack paper. You can’t decrypt it. You can’t harvest it now and crack it later. The only way to access information stored on paper is to physically acquire it.
They’re going to have to start screening Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy at CIA training again.
Consider cryptocurrency as a bit of harbinger of this future. Bitcoin, despite being entirely digital, already requires physical security solutions. Hardware wallets — physical devices that store cryptographic keys — are considered the most secure way to protect digital assets. But even this hybrid approach depends upon encryption that quantum computers could eventually break. The very existence of these physical intermediaries hints at a fundamental truth: purely digital security may be impossible in a post-quantum world.
Many organizations already maintain their most sensitive information in physical form. The U.S. military keeps certain critical systems air-gapped and documented on paper. Some banking systems still rely on physical ledgers as backups. Corporate lawyers often prefer paper for their most sensitive documents. These aren’t antiquated holdovers — they’re pragmatic solutions to security concerns that quantum computing will only make more relevant.
But returning to paper doesn’t mean abandoning digital convenience entirely. A hybrid approach might emerge, where routine operations remain digital while truly sensitive information returns to physical form. This could lead to new systems and practices: secure physical storage facilities might become as common as data centers; document destruction might become as critical as data deletion; physical security might become as sophisticated as cybersecurity. Every sensitive government or corporate decision is made in conclave.
The future might also see novel solutions beyond traditional paper. Biological storage — encoding information in DNA — could offer physical security with digital density. New materials might be developed specifically for secure information storage (of course, if you can put it in there, someone can probably get it out). We might even see the emergence of new forms of encryption based on physical rather than mathematical properties. Good lord what if you have to dance your password…
The rise of quantum computing doesn’t mean the end of privacy, but it might mean the end of our assumption that digital is forever. In a world where no encryption is permanently secure, the most enduring secrets might be those written on paper, locked in a drawer, protected by physical rather than mathematical barriers. That person with the post-it note might just be ahead of their time — though perhaps they should consider moving it from the wall to a safe.
This isn’t regression — it’s adaptation. Just as quantum computing represents a fundamental shift in how we process information, we might need a fundamental shift in how we protect it. It may be that the future of security looks a lot like its past.
Written by Christopher Butler on
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