Securing the Internet with Post-Quantum Cryptography in TLS 1.3

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To kick things off: what is post-quantum cryptography and why do we need it? Well, let me tell you a little story about Alice and Bob (because who doesn’t love a good story).

Alice and Bob are two lovers separated by distance but united in their desire for secure communication. They use TLS to encrypt their messages so that no one can eavesdrop on them. However, there’s this ***** guy named Charlie who has a quantum computer (let’s call it Chuck) that can break the encryption used by Alice and Bob.

Chuck is like a supercomputer on juice he can factor large numbers in seconds instead of hours or days. This means that if Alice and Bob use traditional cryptography, their messages will be vulnerable to attack from Chuck. Relax, it’s all good! Post-quantum cryptography has come to the rescue!

Post-quantum cryptography is a type of encryption that is resistant to attacks by quantum computers. It uses mathematical problems that are difficult for classical computers but easy for quantum computers, and vice versa. This means that even if Chuck shows up with his fancy quantum computer, Alice and Bob’s messages will still be secure!

Now how we can implement post-quantum cryptography in TLS 1.3. First, you need to make sure your server supports it (most modern servers do). Then, you need to enable the “TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305” cipher suite, which is a post-quantum cipher suite that uses ChaCha20 and Poly1305 for encryption.

Here’s how you can do it on an Apache server:

# Edit your httpd.conf file
# Use "sudo" to run the command as a superuser
sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

# Add the following lines to enable TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305 cipher suite
# Use "SSLProtocol" to specify the protocols to be used for secure connections
# Use "all" to enable all protocols, "-SSLv2" and "-SSLv3" to disable specific protocols
# Use "+TLSv1.3" to enable TLS 1.3
SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3 +TLSv1.3

# Use "SSLCipherSuite" to specify the cipher suites to be used for secure connections
# Use "ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256" and "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256" for AES encryption
# Use "ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305" and "ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305" for ChaCha20 and Poly1305 encryption
SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305

# Use "SSLHonorCipherOrder" to specify the order in which the cipher suites should be used
# Use "on" to prioritize the ciphers specified in "SSLCipherSuite"
SSLHonorCipherOrder on

And that’s it! Your server is now using post-quantum cryptography in TLS 1.3. Of course, you can use other cipher suites as well (there are many to choose from), but this one is a good starting point for those who want to be on the cutting edge of internet security.

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