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Quantum & Cyber / Mission Security
A sufficiently capable quantum computer breaks the public-key cryptography deployed across today’s mission systems, and traffic recorded now can be decrypted then. DERECHO treats post-quantum migration as an architecture problem for autonomous systems, worked from the start.
Migration architecture · Crypto-agility research
Three Different Things
The single most common error in this field is conflation. These are three distinct disciplines, and only the first is a near-term engineering path for mission systems.
Classical mathematics chosen to resist attack by future quantum computers. Runs on today's hardware and networks. This is where NIST's finalized standards live, and where DERECHO's migration architecture is oriented.
DERECHO focus: migration architecture
Transmitting quantum states themselves, typically over optical links. A physics research field with active government programs, and a long-horizon research subject in DERECHO's air-space thread, not a capability.
DERECHO focus: research subject
Using quantum physics to exchange encryption keys with eavesdropping detection. Distinct from PQC and from general quantum communications; not part of DERECHO's mission-security architecture.
DERECHO focus: none claimed
The Pillars
Architecture designed so algorithms are replaceable components, because migration is a process, not an event.
A migration architecture oriented on NIST-standardized post-quantum algorithms for key establishment and signatures.
Every node, aircraft, sensor, operator, designed to authenticate continuously rather than trusting the network perimeter.
Mission software designed to be verified from first instruction through every update, with signatures planned to migrate to post-quantum schemes.
Generation, distribution, rotation, and revocation designed for platforms that operate disconnected.
Measurements designed to carry origin, custody, and confidence metadata across the mesh, so data arrives with its pedigree.
Provenance and integrity discipline for the code that reaches mission platforms.
Long-lived mission data treated as already at risk: what is recorded today must withstand the cryptanalysis of later decades.
Status labels for this work: migration architecture, crypto-agility research, implementation planning. No implementation is validated or certified.
The Network
FORGEMESH is where this architecture is designed to live: a mesh whose nodes hold verifiable identities, whose software arrives signed, whose algorithms are replaceable, and whose data carries provenance; in full connectivity or in partition.
The Clock Is the Threat Model
Mission data has a secrecy lifetime, often measured in decades. An adversary who records encrypted traffic today does not need a quantum computer today; they need one before that lifetime ends. This is why U.S. government guidance directs organizations to inventory their cryptography and begin migration now, and why NIST’s post-quantum standards exist.
For autonomous platforms with long service lives, the design consequence is crypto agility: systems built so the cryptography can change underneath the mission. That is the requirement DERECHO builds toward, stated as architecture, not as a certification.
Research and integration architecture. No quantum payload has been integrated or flown; descriptions on this page are design intent for systems in development. DERECHO does not claim FIPS validation, CNSA compliance, NSA approval, NIST compliance, or any certification, and does not describe any system as quantum-safe, quantum-secure, or quantum-proof. Quantum sensing, quantum communications, quantum key distribution, quantum computing, and post-quantum cryptography are distinct disciplines. DERECHO's work in this area is research and integration architecture for systems in development; descriptions reflect design intent, and no quantum capability, performance, certification, or compliance is claimed.