The Cryptographic Void
Modern security failures are rarely failures of mathematics. They are failures of authority.
This book examines how cryptography now encodes institutional power across identity systems, PKI trust anchors,
automation pipelines, machine identities, and emerging agentic AI — and why post-quantum transition and AI expansion
together represent an authority event, not merely a technical upgrade.
What this book argues
Cryptography is no longer a narrow security control. It has become an authority system: it decides who may act, what may execute, and which systems may trust one another.
As regulated organisations accelerate automation and deploy AI into decision flows, identity surfaces multiply — service accounts, API tokens, certificates, workload identities, delegated privileges. At the same time, post-quantum transition pressure approaches the trust anchors that stabilise those systems.
Treating these as separate initiatives creates structural risk: authority expands while governance stays static. The result is dilution — accountability remains with the institution while operational authority migrates into platforms, pipelines, and machine-to-machine trust.
Who it’s for
- Financial services leaders navigating PQ transition alongside AI expansion and identity sprawl.
- Security and architecture owners accountable for PKI trust anchors, key ownership, and cryptographic outcomes.
- Engineers and governance teams working across cloud, on-prem, and constrained or embedded estates.
What it is — and is not
- Is: governance-first, vendor-neutral, grounded in operational reality and long-horizon risk.
- Is not: a product comparison, a compliance checklist, or a “quick PQC migration recipe”.
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