In 2021, as part of a Computer Security course project, two colleagues and I co-authored a survey paper titled "Effects of Quantum Computing in Security." The paper explored the how quantum algorithms, particularly Shor’s and Grover’s, could potentially break traditional encryption schemes. To my surprise, the professor thought it was good enough to pursue for publication.
But over the next three and a half years, besides refinement, formatting, and the arXiv preprint, nothing happened. The paper remained unpublished. But this July, the professor sent us an email informing us that paper was finally accepted for publication as a chapter in a technical book, due for publication at the close of the year.
Come the end of the year and the book is finally announced and available for pre-order. Edited by Mohammad Hammoudeh et al., the book, titled "Quantum Computing: A Journey into the Next Frontier of Information and Communication Security" offers a comprehensive exploration of quantum computing concepts and their applications in cybersecurity, culminating in the chapter “Quantum Computing-Based Attacks on Cryptography and Countermeasures", co-authored by myself.
While this may not be a publication in a major journal or an A* conference, it still marks my first publication—a milestone I am quite proud of. I am of course incredibly grateful to my professor, Dr. Devrim Unal for seeing this through to publication, and to my co-authors, Sandrik Das and Abdulrahman Al-Raimi.
I hope this is the first of many publications to come.