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>Also, you have to consider that once you get a quantum computer that can break 2048-RSA, you'll be able to break all the encrypted communications you've stored in the past few years, too

isn't that what PFS is supposed to prevent?

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PFS can slow it down a bit, but not much. Assuming before PFS everyone changed their keys every 3 years, and with PFS they change them every 2 weeks, then it should be about 80x harder (slower to break the encryption). 80x harder may seem like a lot but it's not that much in the context of quantum computers.

Also, PFS uses 256-bit ECC, which only requires a 512-qubit quantum computer to break it. So it's possible that a 4,000 qubit quantum computer, or even a smaller one, could break ECC with PFS even faster than it can break 2048-bit RSA.

> Also, PFS uses 256-bit ECC, which only requires a 512-qubit quantum computer to break it.

Grover's algorithm is a quadratic, not exponential speedup. It may require 512 qubits, but it still requires 2^128 time.

ECC is vulnerable to Shor's algorithm, which gives exponential speedup. A rough calculation implies that 256-bit ECC would take on the order of 25k quantum operations to break.

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