LaMarr Labs Field Guide

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5 min read

The Post-Quantum Field Guide

A working post-quantum cryptographer’s guide to the quantum transition: what’s coming for the cryptography the whole world runs on, why it matters, and what to actually do about it.

Start here

Pick the line that sounds like you, and I’ll walk you through it in the right order.

New to all of this? Start with Why This Exists, then pick a door below.

Migration leads You were just handed a migration and have no idea where step one is. Start here → CISOs & security leaders You own security for your organization, and this risk lands on you. Start here → Board & budget owners You need to brief your board, or write the memo that gets it funded. Start here → Developers & implementers You're a developer putting post-quantum cryptography into a real system. Start here →
  • You want to understand the whole thing, start to finish. → Start at the beginning, then follow the journey below.
  • You just need one specific standard or term. → Search, or open any note directly. Each one is a self-contained, cited answer.

Each of the first four is a guided path: a sequence of steps that routes you through exactly the notes you need, in the order that makes them click.

What the transition is

The post-quantum transition is the global effort to replace the public-key cryptography protecting today’s digital infrastructure before quantum computers can break it. A large enough quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm would defeat RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and elliptic-curve cryptography, the algorithms behind secure web traffic, digital signatures, and encrypted data. NIST has published the replacement standards (ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and others), and organizations are now migrating to them on real regulatory deadlines.

Maintained by Addie LaMarr, a working cryptographer. Every load-bearing claim cited to its primary source. Last verified 9 July 2026.

How to use this Guide

  • Hover over any linked term and its note pops up, the definition and full page, without you leaving the one you’re on.
  • The left sidebar is a complete index of every note. Browse it freely.
  • MOCs (Maps of Content) are the section hubs. Each one indexes its topic and routes you through it in order.
  • The Table of Contents, on the right, lists every heading in the note, so you can jump straight to any section.
  • Backlinks, on the right under the Table of Contents, show what else references this note, so you can see what connects to what.
  • The graph panel shows the notes linked to the one you’re reading. Treat it as a map, not a menu: following the links inside a note is easier to navigate than clicking around the graph.

The journey

The complete arc, walkable from zero. Each section builds on the one before it.

1 FoundationsWhat security is, and classical cryptography explained for humans: keys, symmetric and asymmetric, hashing, signatures, PKI, TLS. The ground you stand on before any of the quantum part makes sense.Start here → 2 The ThreatQuantum computing, in plain terms, and exactly how it breaks the cryptography from section 1.Start here → 3 The TransitionThe new post-quantum standards and how migration actually works, across all three dimensions below.Start here → 4 The MandatesThe regulations and deadlines driving this now.Start here → 5 Doing the WorkGoverning the transition, and the free board and practitioner resources to run it.Start here →

The three dimensions

The transition runs on three dimensions at once, technical, organizational, and human, and it stalls on the last two. This Guide maps all three.

one transition Technical the cryptography Organizational who owns it Human who resists it
  • Technical: the cryptography, the standards, the architecture.
  • Organizational: where the transition really stalls: the algorithm hidden in dozens of unmapped vendor products, who owns what, governance as an operating model.
  • Human: the change nobody plans for: people fear their skills are obsolete and resist, so the work is bringing them along, three small reversible moves at a time.

Who’s behind this, and why listen

Addie LaMarr keynoting on the post-quantum timeline

I’m Addie LaMarr, and I’ve spent 15 years inside the cryptography the whole world runs on: 8 as an applied cryptographer in the U.S. Air Force, then writing federal policy and advising CISOs at the FBI and the Department of Justice. I’ve worked both ends of this transition, the hands on the key-management infrastructure and the pen on the governance memo, which is why I can see where these programs actually break. Today I run LaMarr Labs, an independent post-quantum cryptography consultancy.

I also read the quantum shift differently from most of the field. It’s a cryptography story with 2,500 years of precedent behind it, and I’ve spent my life obsessed with that history, from Bletchley Park to the Navajo code talkers to the Zimmermann Telegram. That lineage is the most honest teacher we have for what’s coming, and it’s what makes this whole thing finally click.

I built this guide to be the map I wish someone had handed me: honest, complete, cited, and free. The fuller story is on the About Addie page. When your team wants this quantified against your own estate and defensible to your regulator, that’s the work I’m brought in to do. Request a briefing.

Checked, cited, and free

Every concept note opens with a plain-English summary, carries its citations inline, and shows the date it was last verified against the primary source. The deep reference graph underneath the journey is where the detail lives, and it’s all free.

Graph View