Developer Documents Journey Into LFX Mentorship Working on Post-Quantum Cryptography Tool

A developer has shared their experience of being selected for the Linux Foundation's LFX Mentorship Program to work on CBOMKit, a project tied to post-quantum cryptography. The mentee, guided by mentor Aditya Koranga, began the program with limited knowledge of OpenSSL and has since learned that it comprises four distinct components: libcrypto, libssl, a command-line tool, and the EVP API. Through the mentorship, they discovered that OpenSSL underpins widely used software including Nginx, PostgreSQL, and JWT libraries, often invisibly handling encryption tasks. The developer also explored how BoringSSL emerged as a Google fork following the 2014 Heartbleed vulnerability, and how Node.js now supports post-quantum algorithms natively via OpenSSL 3.5. The post reflects both the technical progress made and the gaps in understanding that remain as the mentorship continues.