> No. In reality so-called quantum cryptography is completely impractical
What about building quantum safe protocols? Is that as a field any more interesting and/or viable?
Yes. Plenty of stuff happening in that field.
The challenge is: Right now we can choose between probably safe, but impractical (mcbits, sphincs) and practical, but with big questionmarks about how safe they are (newhope, sidh). The problem is: We really only trust crypto algos if they have been tested and researched over a long time, but lots of these things are pretty new.
> That's called post-quantum cryptography, not quantum cryptography.
As I understand it, "quantum safe" and "post-quantum" describe the same thing.
I never used the term 'quantum cryptography'
Really its not that much different than how things work now. When we send a message around the world, its going through dozens of computers to get there. And wifi can always be an end point extension.
No.
In reality so-called quantum cryptography is completely impractical. Imagine an Internet where you can't send messages to people more than a few hundred kilometers away, with no wifi and no mobile Internet and which only works if you have pre-shared keys. That's the Quantum Internet (which apparently the EU just decided to fund with billions).