I oversee a lab where engineers try to destroy my life’s work. It’s the only way to prepare for quantum threats

The first time I handed over my credit card to a security lab, it came back to me broken. Not physically damaged, but compromised. In less than 10 minutes, the engineers had discovered my PIN.

This happened in the early 1990s, when I was a young engineer starting an internship at one of the companies that helped create the smart card industry. I believed my card was secure. I believed the system worked. But watching strangers casually extract something that was supposed to be secret and protected was a shock.