131–140 of 161 posts
I'm surprised nobody has written a thriller yet where a new mathematical algorithm is found (maybe something to do with primes?), all encryption suddenly collapses, and with that we go into a psuedo-apocalypse where nobody is sure whether anything is authentic anymore. Banks can't share cash, ID systems are useless, we've still got electricity but no functioning internet, hardware root of trust is shattered...
Sneakers is the thriller movie you’re looking for
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In the worst possible case we just switch to the one time pad encryption, which makes things inconvenient but literally can't be cracked by any computer or algorithm(tldr: the length of the key is as long as the length of the message, so a message can decode into anything and you can't tell whether the text you decoded is the right one or not). So a scenario where literally no encryption is available seems far fetche…
Yes, we simply change to one time pad encryption and ... distribute pre-share keys to every user on earth for every service that modern civilization relies on? The failure of RSA in a significant way would mean the end of modern commerce, military balance of power, and the sharing of information. It would be a history-altering event in the best case and devolve into existential war in the worst case. OTPs would do ex…
I'm surprised nobody has written a thriller yet where a new mathematical algorithm is found (maybe something to do with primes?), all encryption suddenly collapses, and with that we go into a psuedo-apocalypse where nobody is sure whether anything is authentic anymore. Banks can't share cash, ID systems are useless, we've still got electricity but no functioning internet, hardware root of trust is shattered...
In the worst possible case we just switch to the one time pad encryption, which makes things inconvenient but literally can't be cracked by any computer or algorithm(tldr: the length of the key is as long as the length of the message, so a message can decode into anything and you can't tell whether the text you decoded is the right one or not). So a scenario where literally no encryption is available seems far fetche…
I'm surprised nobody has written a thriller yet where a new mathematical algorithm is found (maybe something to do with primes?), all encryption suddenly collapses, and with that we go into a psuedo-apocalypse where nobody is sure whether anything is authentic anymore. Banks can't share cash, ID systems are useless, we've still got electricity but no functioning internet, hardware root of trust is shattered...
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Let me know if you find such a betting venue... I'll take the same side. I'm aware of both Microsoft and Google publishing papers claiming astounding quantum feats, then later retracting them (I have to assume there were similar instances with lesser known companies). I think your skepticism is valid.
For the Microsoft one I'm assuming you're referring to the retraction of the detection of Majoranas [1]. Do you have a reference for a Google quantum paper being retracted? I don't recall an instance of that (disclaimer: I am on the Google quantum team; my views do not represent them). 1: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03373-x
The real number was 2.5 days, and the computing breakthrough involved in the huge speedup was... using SSDs to store your intermediate state instead of recomputing it every iteration.
I'm surprised nobody has written a thriller yet where a new mathematical algorithm is found (maybe something to do with primes?), all encryption suddenly collapses, and with that we go into a psuedo-apocalypse where nobody is sure whether anything is authentic anymore. Banks can't share cash, ID systems are useless, we've still got electricity but no functioning internet, hardware root of trust is shattered...
All that would need to happen for this exact scenario to occur would be for anyone, anywhere to find a case where P == NP. [1] P !== NP is a theory that has never been proven, so it very well could happen in reality. This is one of those things that keeps me awake, like Carrington events [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
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Post-quantum cryptography is not necessarily secure either. One of the four finalists in a NIST competition for post-quantum cryptography [SIDH] was suddenly, out of the blue, shattered with an algorithm that could break it in hours on a laptop. Turns out it was secure against quantum computers but insecure against classical computers. If you want to be safe, you might almost consider standard cryptography on one of…
My understanding is that Bitcoin, used correctly , is effectively quantum safe. Since the "recipient" address of a UTXO is expressed as a hash, a user does not broadcast their public key until after they spend the funds. If you follow good practice, you make a single transaction, sending funds to the recipient, and the "change" to yourself, in a new wallet address (addressed by the hash of its public key). This means…
This part is just a tad questionable. To spend funds, you have to get the transaction recorded in a block. The usual way to do that is to broadcast it through the whole network until a miner picks it up.
So there's more than a bit of wiggle room between "I broadcast everything about this tx" until "the money is already spent and I'm safe.
It certainly does (in the usual case where the vast majority of the network and your connection to it is not under the attacker's control) limit the time an attacker has to compute, but it's not exactly pretty or reassuring.
I'm surprised nobody has written a thriller yet where a new mathematical algorithm is found (maybe something to do with primes?), all encryption suddenly collapses, and with that we go into a psuedo-apocalypse where nobody is sure whether anything is authentic anymore. Banks can't share cash, ID systems are useless, we've still got electricity but no functioning internet, hardware root of trust is shattered...