Evidence-Tiered Horizons: An Anatomical Review of Grover et al.'s CRQC+AI Scenario Instrument for TLS 1.3 and Ten Competing Threat Models

This review conducts an anatomical reading of Grover, Haile, Pedersen, Uner and Erickson (2026), A Scenario-Based Evaluation of CRQC+AI Vulnerability Spectrum for TLS 1.3 Cryptographic Dependencies. The source paper does not claim a known break of any NIST-standardised post-quantum primitive. Its distinctive contribution is an evidence-tiered, parameterised, and explicitly revisable estimation instrument that separates mechanism-backed risk (Shor against RSA and elliptic-curve schemes) from contingency-backed lattice risk (an unproven effective-dimension collapse parameter ρ) and hypothesis-only risk to hash-based and symmetric primitives. The present review reconstructs the three coupled instruments (engineering-channel model, capability model, cryptanalytic cost model), enumerates strengths and weaknesses, and situates the work against ten competing families of quantum-threat modelling: Mosca–Global Risk Institute expert elicitation; Gidney-class resource estimation; NIST IR 8547 policy calendars; NSA CNSA 2.0 mandates; vendor hardware roadmaps; core-SVP / BKZ lattice costing; NIST MAXDEPTH Grover accounting; Gershteyn–Alber Quantum Horizon Monte Carlo; single-point Q-Day / Y2Q countdowns; and Rose's-Law hardware envelopes. Ontologically, the paper shifts the object of forecasting from a unique Q-Day event to a graded spectrum of primitive-erosion states.

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