So, when designing my QuantumExpress Secure File Manager, I knew I had to find the most modern encryption approach — something truly built for the future.

Two non-negotiable requirements were immediately clear:

It had to be impervious against any modern GPU farm attacks — the kind hackers or nation-states could throw at it today.
It had to be ready for real quantum computers when they eventually arrive — machines capable of breaking outdated encryption methods with ease.

That is no small task.It can overwhelm you just thinking about it.

Then I ran into the Argon2 family of algorithms — specifically, Argon2id — and everything clicked.

Why Argon2id?

Unlike old password hashing methods (like SHA-256 or PBKDF2), Argon2id was designed from the start to resist both classical and future attack models.It doesn't just make hashing slower — it makes it harder, more memory-hungry, and cost-prohibitive to crack at scale.

It forces attackers to not only spend time but massive amounts of memory per password guess — something that GPU farms absolutely hate.

Here’s how Argon2id internally works:

[ Password + Salt ]

↓

[ Argon2id Initialization ]

↓

[ Allocate Large Memory Block ]

(Example: 128 MB, 256 MB, or even 512 MB)

↓

[ Fill Memory with Pseudorandom Data ]

↓

[ Multiple Memory-Intensive Iterations ]

(Shuffling, recomputing inside RAM)

↓

[ Final Output: Strong, Unique Password Hash ]

(Stored securely, compared later during login)

Why This Protects You

Step	Protection
Memory Allocation	Forces high RAM usage per password guess
Pseudorandom Data Filling	Makes simple precomputation attacks impossible
Multiple Memory Rounds	Blocks time/memory tradeoff attacks (you can't "shortcut" the effort)
Final Hash Derived from Full Memory State	No fast math tricks — you must redo the hard work every time

✅ Attackers can't simply spin up 10,000 GPUs and crack you overnight.

✅ They would need 10,000 GPUs plus an insane amount of RAM per core, massively driving up the cost and time.

How I Built This in Python

In QuantumExpress, when you create an encryption key:

The user chooses (or is given) a strong password.
A random salt is generated.
I run the password + salt through an Argon2id KDF (Key Derivation Function). Python makes this part easy.
- Configured for high memory usage (e.g., 128MB+ per password)
- Configured for multiple iterations for extra hardness
The output of Argon2id becomes the protected cryptographic material.
Then, AES-256-GCM encryption uses that derived key to encrypt your files.
All key files are separately stored with .qkey extensions, password-protected at the Argon2id level.

In short:

No password = no key. No key = no decryption. Even if someone has the file, without the exact password and without repeating the full Argon2id computation at high memory cost, they cannot get in.

Why This Is Future-Ready

In today's world:

Even the fastest GPU farms are limited by memory per core.
Without hundreds of GBs of RAM (per batch), attackers are throttled by Argon2id.

In tomorrow's world:

Even quantum computers won't magically bypass memory hardness.
Post-quantum encryption will evolve, but memory-hard password protection will still be an essential layer.

That's why I built QuantumExpress this way — not just for now, but for where the future is heading.

Final Thought

Entropy is your shield. Memory is your armor. Time is your ally. With Argon2id + AES-256-GCM + Quantum Randomness, QuantumExpress stands ready to face the storms of today and tomorrow.

If you want to future-proof your files today, this is where you start. Contact me for more details and access to my application.

— Mansour Ansari

Founder, QuantumLaso, LLC

#PostQuantumCryptography