and while we wait, is there anything stronger than 128bit comming in the near future? (6 months)
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and while we wait, is there anything stronger than 128bit comming in the near future? (6 months)
I absolutely suck at math. I think I actually failed grade 11 math (or dropped out before I did). Anyways, The Code Book resulted in me getting more interested in math and not as afraid. If someone had told me that math could help me with cryptography and decoding, I would have stuck it out.
I now have a greater interest in math as I've recently picked up Singh's other book Fermat's Enigma. =)
A quote to live by, in dealing with computers and how far we've come as far as cryptography/uses/etc...someone stated it but I don't remember the source:
I can see the use for up to 5 computers in the world...
Now that's not entirely correct (memory going stale here) but that was back in 195[0-9]. That's like Albert Tanenbaum telling Linus that his "writing of another OS for the i286 earns him his second F for the semester". Or the HS basketball coach telling Michael Jordan that he wasn't good enough to play on the team.
It's just a matter of time. I'm sure the people that wrote the DVD encoding didn't think that 7 lines of code could break it. Everything's "unbreakable" at the beginning. Such is the way of Open Source when you can start hax0r1ng it right away to reverse-engineer it. That's probably the only downside I see to Open Source material.
I'm not criticizing anyone, but it is my strong opinion that no system is completely 'uncrackable'. I believe that within time EVERYTHING can be broken into, reverse engineered, etc. I know that many others feel this way about 'uncrackable' systems.
Agree in principle that nothing is uncrackable, which is why I put 'uncrackable' in quotes :) But if you want to be pedantic there is one exception to this - the so called 'one time pad' which has been used by secret agents since at least the beginning of this centuary. The algorithm used to encrypt/decrypt is very simple, just using a single key, and can be done with pencil and paper (not much else available in 1900!). As long as the key is random then this is completely uncrackable - both parties use the key only once, and then physically destroy it (the key).
I think that is the sort of approach being proposed for quantum based computers talking to each other over a fibre optic link.
This is certainly an awesome development! As Darkes said, the true value of quantum cryptography is not just the fact that there will real random numbers, not the pseudo-random number currently used, or that it might be impossible to "crack," but the value is in the fact that it is impossible to intercept quantumly encrypted data (light in this case). The idea behind this, is that once someone "looks" at the data, the light goes out of superposition (an infinite number of possible "spins") and is forced into a certain state, which won't be what it is supposed to be, and obviously the receiving end of the communication will be able to recogize this.
It is difficult to speculate on the ability to "crack" such encryption techniques because we barely have a grasp on how these superpositions work, and how we can get them to work for us, let alone using other elements of quantum mechanics to "crack" the encryption. As I like to say, the science comes first, then the engineering builds from what the science learns. At this point, science has just begun to learn enough to understand general concepts of quantum mechanics, so it would be presumptious to say it can or can't be cracked until everything is learned about quantum mechanics...and by the way things are going (especially with what looks like some serious changes in theory on the horizon by the solid-state physicists) we won't know the correct answers for quite a while...
If anyone wants to discuss quantum cryptography, or any subject matter of quantum mechanics related to computing, please let me know...I love discussing this stuff...
-Wizeman
Wizeman said:
I, for one, would be very interested in this discussion. Now mind you, I'm not a mathematician (nor am I a great speller) but I do like learning about this kind of stuff.Quote:
If anyone wants to discuss quantum cryptography, or any subject matter of quantum mechanics related to computing, please let me know...I love discussing this stuff...
Teach, oh Jedi Master, teach! =)
Well, I'm far from a master at this stuff. I've just read a couple of books and taken some classes involving quantum mechanics. I'm also not a mathematician, and most of the mathematics just back up the theories concerning probability waves and tunneling. Either way, I've been really very interested in this stuff since my senior year in high school, and the applications of quantum mechanics are just enormous. Not only are we just talking about computers that can compute multiple things at one time using (no I'm not talking about multiple processor stuff, but calculating all possible solutions at one time) superpositions, we are also talking about cryptography that could be uncrackable (for good or bad) and some even believe that quantum computing is the only way that we can truly make artificial intelligence.
Anyway, let me know of your interests, so I can speak in more detail about them, or just throw out some theories for discusion.
-Wizeman