Post-Quantum Cryptography: Start the Inventory Before Q-Day

You don't inventory your house the morning of the move. You start months before. So why are most organizations still treating post-quantum cryptography as a 2035 problem? Episode 31 of Plaintext with Rich treats the post-quantum crypto migration as what it actually is. A logistics problem, not a science one. We walk through the news peg that moved the timeline. Google's March 2026 announcement of a 2029 internal deadline, years ahead of federal targets, anchored by Craig Gidney's research at Google Quantum AI showing that one million noisy qubits could break a 2,048-bit RSA key in under a week. We explain harvest-now-decrypt-later in plain language, the threat that doesn't wait for Q-Day. We cover the three new NIST standards (FIPS 203, FIPS 204, FIPS 205), the NSA's January 2027 CNSA 2.0 procurement gate, and the design principle that matters more than any single algorithm. Crypto-agility. The episode closes with a Plaintext Starter Kit for the leader who needs to know what to ask the security team this quarter. If you've ever wondered what "quantum breaks encryption" actually means for your environment, or whether you should be doing anything about it before 2030, this one is for you. Ten minutes. One topic. No panic. Is there a topic/term you want me to discuss next? Text me!! YouTube more your speed? → https://links.sith2.com/YouTube Apple Podcasts your usual stop? → https://links.sith2.com/Apple Neither of those? Spotify’s over here → https://links.sith2.com/Spotify Prefer reading quietly at your own pace? → https://links.sith2.com/Blog Join us in The Cyber Sanctuary (no robes required) → https://links.sith2.com/Discord Follow the human behind the microphone → https://links.sith2.com/linkedin Need another way to reach me? That’s here → https://linktr.ee/rich.greene