[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"branding":3,"analytics":7,"article-cloudflare-becomes-a-certificate-authority-for-the-quantum-era":10,"sections":35},{"siteName":4,"siteTagline":5,"publisherName":4,"contactEmail":6},"The Revision","Tech news, decoded.","editor@therevision.news",{"gaMeasurementId":8,"adsenseClientId":9},"G-ZW2MV82GYR","ca-pub-8533917693782264",{"article":11},{"id":12,"slug":13,"title":14,"dek":15,"body_md":16,"tags_json":17,"published_at":18,"created_at":19,"updated_at":20,"status":21,"review_note":22,"review_notes":23,"image_url":22,"persona_id":22,"persona_name":22,"section":24,"tags":25,"sources":30,"feedback":34,"feedback_at":22,"cost_usd":34,"total_tokens":34},8389,"cloudflare-becomes-a-certificate-authority-for-the-quantum-era","Cloudflare Becomes a Certificate Authority for the Quantum Era","Cloudflare's new certificate authority will issue free, compact post-quantum certificates designed to avoid a 40x blowup in transparency-log data.","Cloudflare is now a certificate authority, and it's using the launch to pilot a new way of issuing certificates that can survive a quantum computer.\n\nToday Cloudflare confirmed it is becoming a CA, and that CA will issue Merkle Tree Certificates (MTCs) alongside standard TLS certificates, for free. MTCs come from an IETF draft spec and batch many certificates into a single append-only Merkle tree, so a CA signs one tree root instead of signing every certificate individually. Browsers then verify a site's certificate with a compact inclusion proof checked against that signed tree head, rather than validating each certificate's signature on its own. Cloudflare is targeting early 2027 for inclusion in Chrome's new Quantum-resistant Root Store, ahead of the industry's 2029 deadline for moving to post-quantum cryptography.\n\nThe reason this matters is math, not marketing. Post-quantum signatures run roughly 40 times larger than today's classical ones, and Cloudflare estimates that swapping them in naively would balloon the data that certificate transparency logs must store by the same factor. MTCs sidestep that by coupling issuance to logging directly - \"don't log what you issue, issue by logging\" - so transparency becomes a built-in requirement instead of a costly add-on that discourages smaller log operators.\n\nNone of this fixes the underlying uncertainty: no one knows exactly when a quantum computer capable of breaking today's encryption will actually exist. What Cloudflare is really doing is making sure the plumbing doesn't collapse when that day arrives - and giving itself first-mover credibility as a CA in the process.","[\"post-quantum-cryptography\",\"certificate-authority\",\"cloudflare\",\"web-security\"]","2026-09-29T13:00:00.000Z","2026-09-29T13:27:12.356Z","2026-09-29T13:27:19.381Z","published",null,[],"security",[26,27,28,29],"post-quantum-cryptography","certificate-authority","cloudflare","web-security",[31],{"name":32,"url":33},"Cloudflare Blog","https:\u002F\u002Fblog.cloudflare.com\u002Fpq-ca-with-mtcs\u002F",0,{"sections":36},[37,42,46,51,56,61,66,71,76,81,86,91,96,101],{"name":38,"slug":39,"count":40,"latest_published_at":41},"AI","ai",4929,"2026-09-29T14:10:02.000Z",{"name":43,"slug":24,"count":44,"latest_published_at":45},"Security",773,"2026-09-29T13:25:21.000Z",{"name":47,"slug":48,"count":49,"latest_published_at":50},"Policy","policy",411,"2026-09-29T13:23:55.000Z",{"name":52,"slug":53,"count":54,"latest_published_at":55},"Deals","deals",282,"2026-09-29T13:30:00.000Z",{"name":57,"slug":58,"count":59,"latest_published_at":60},"Hardware","hardware",194,"2026-09-29T13:16:04.000Z",{"name":62,"slug":63,"count":64,"latest_published_at":65},"Science","science",154,"2026-09-28T13:19:18.000Z",{"name":67,"slug":68,"count":69,"latest_published_at":70},"Consumer Tech","consumer-tech",139,"2026-09-28T17:09:47.000Z",{"name":72,"slug":73,"count":74,"latest_published_at":75},"Software","software",91,"2026-09-25T20:55:00.000Z",{"name":77,"slug":78,"count":79,"latest_published_at":80},"Dev Tools","dev-tools",88,"2026-09-29T08:26:28.000Z",{"name":82,"slug":83,"count":84,"latest_published_at":85},"Startups","startups",81,"2026-09-29T09:00:00.000Z",{"name":87,"slug":88,"count":89,"latest_published_at":90},"General","general",49,"2026-09-28T16:44:57.000Z",{"name":92,"slug":93,"count":94,"latest_published_at":95},"Gaming","gaming",48,"2026-09-25T18:35:21.000Z",{"name":97,"slug":98,"count":99,"latest_published_at":100},"Reviews","reviews",31,"2026-09-28T14:31:34.000Z",{"name":102,"slug":103,"count":104,"latest_published_at":105},"How-To","how-to",6,"2026-06-16T09:00:00.000Z"]