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Suggested Citation: "Appendix C: Potential Scenarios." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Cryptography and the Intelligence Community: The Future of Encryption. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26168.

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Potential Scenarios

As part of the committee’s exploration of the worlds and the down-selection process, the group developed snapshots for each world to discuss how the endpoints would converge. As discussed in Chapter 5 and Chapter 7, the committee determined that Scenario 2, Scenario 5, and Scenario 6 would be the most interesting to explore, given the sponsor’s questions and resulting convergence of the endpoints. Table C.1 summarizes all the scenarios that were generated, including those that were not selected for exploration.

TABLE C.1 Short Descriptions of All the Scenarios Generated for Possible Exploration

Scenario	Systems	Scientific Advances	Society and Governance	Description
1	Mature	Predictable	Fragmented	Balance favors defense. No quantum computers and few mathematical breakthroughs; deterioration of international trust leads to splintering of Internet and localized 5G/6G; some use of computation on encrypted data to limit data sharing; Intelligence Community is forced to increase collection efforts to offset lost partnerships; some countries ban end-to-end encryption and keep extensive data on citizens, creating targets for collection; loss of trust in governments amplifies insiders as an offensive opportunity and a defensive threat; growth of untraceable digital currency systems raises challenges to financial intelligence collection; high quality standards and implementation enhance success of IA and make collection challenging.
2	Mature	Disruptive	Fragmented	Balance favors defense. Quantum computers and/or new factoring techniques threaten data previously encrypted with older algorithms; successful post-quantum transition mitigates the damage; deterioration of international trust leads to splintering of Internet and local 5G/6G; wide use of new techniques for computation on encrypted data to limit data sharing; Intelligence Community is forced to increase collection efforts to offset lost partnerships; some countries ban end-to-end encryption and keep extensive data on citizens, creating targets for collection; loss of trust in governments amplifies insiders as an offensive opportunity and a defensive threat; growth of untraceable digital currency systems raises challenges to financial intelligence collection; high quality standards and implementation enhance success of IA and this plus rapid changes in technology make collection more challenging.

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Scenario	Systems	Scientific Advances	Society and Governance	Description
3	Mature	Predictable	Global	Balance of offense and defense. No quantum computers and few mathematical breakthroughs; effective security standards and implementations plus limited offensive breakthroughs drive IA mission success; international partnerships and global sharing of commercial/private information help to offset improved technical security; security of 5G/6G, Internet of Things (IoT), and cryptocurrencies benefits from common and sound global standards; common international standards mean that effective offensive techniques often have global reach.
4	Mature	Disruptive	Global	Balance of offense and defense. Quantum computers and/or new factoring techniques threaten data previously encrypted with older algorithms; successful post-quantum transition mitigates the damage; new approaches to computing on encrypted data further challenge offense; international partnerships and global sharing of commercial/private information help to offset improved technical security; security of 5G/6G, IoT, and cryptocurrencies benefits from common and sound global standards; common international standards mean that effective offensive techniques often have global reach.
5	Chaotic	Predictable	Fragmented	Balance favors offense. No quantum computers and few mathematical breakthroughs; poor quality standards and implementations make transition to post-quantum late and bug-ridden; poor implementations lead to opportunities for offense and a nightmare for IA; IoT and 5G/6G suffer from reliance on poor quality code and lack of common standards; Intelligence Community is forced to increase collection efforts to offset lost partnerships; some countries ban end-to-end encryption and keep extensive data on citizens, creating targets for collection; loss of trust in governments amplifies insiders as an offensive opportunity and a defensive threat; fragmented policy environment increases the Intelligence Community workload—every country has its own buggy implementations; pervasive use of poor quality systems facilitates offensive mission.
6	Chaotic	Disruptive	Fragmented	Balance favors offense. Quantum computer breakthroughs and factoring improvements threaten classic cryptography; post-quantum implementations are late and vulnerable; implementations of computation on encrypted data are buggy, leading to easy attacks on the new mechanisms; deterioration of international trust leads to splintering of Internet and local 5G/6G; adoption of computation on encrypted data limited by poor quality standards and implementations; Intelligence Community is forced to increase collection efforts to offset lost partnerships; some countries ban end-to-end encryption and keep extensive data on citizens, creating targets for collection; loss of trust in governments amplifies insiders as an offensive opportunity and a defensive threat; fragmented policy environment increases the Intelligence Community workload—every country has its own buggy implementations; pervasive use of poor quality systems facilitates offensive mission.
7	Chaotic	Predictable	Global	Balance favors offense. No quantum computers and few mathematical breakthroughs; poor quality standards and implementations make transition to post-quantum late and bug-ridden; poor implementations lead to opportunities for offense and a nightmare for IA; despite common standards, IoT, 5G/6G, and cryptocurrencies suffer from reliance on poor quality standards and code; international partnerships and global sharing of commercial/private information amplify the impact of poor technical security; common international standards mean that effective offensive techniques often have global reach.

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Scenario	Systems	Scientific Advances	Society and Governance	Description
8	Chaotic	Disruptive	Global	Balance favors offense. Quantum computer breakthroughs and factoring improvements threaten classic cryptography; post-quantum implementations and standards are poor quality, late, and vulnerable; implementations of computation on encrypted data are buggy, leading to easy attacks on the new mechanisms; despite common standards, IoT, 5G/6G, and cryptocurrencies suffer from reliance on poor quality standards and code; international partnerships and global sharing of commercial/private information amplify the impact of poor technical security; common international standards mean that effective offensive techniques often have global reach.

Cryptography and the Intelligence Community: The Future of Encryption (2022)

Chapter: Appendix C: Potential Scenarios

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Potential Scenarios

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Cryptography and the Intelligence Community: The Future of Encryption (2022)

Chapter: Appendix C: Potential Scenarios

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Potential Scenarios