We have already enter an era of “Intelligentized Warfare” as everything is in play and already being hacked…
Well apparently the Chinese have done it…they have breached SHA256 and Elliptic Curve cryptography according the several newswire stories reporting on announcements from Shanghai University.
It’s been a big question of not IF but WHEN quantum machines will brute force crack open cryptography based on factors of fairly large numbers. The warnings have been around when Alpha Go discovered and then played entirely new moves never seen before just like that, in a universe of possible moves.
I wrote about the ‘quantum threat’ back in January 2021 when the consensus was it would be 30 years before quantum machines get powerful enough. But here is the flaw in this thinking — everyone assumes the hacking parties are not grabbing encrypted data!
News from Shanghai is a powerful reminder that all of your assets, data is already at risk . An those of you believing state sponsored hackers see no value in stealing encrypted data are WRONG.
Cryogenics has the Answer
Some people with diseases and life ending conditions use cryogenic processes to freeze themselves in the hope of future breakthroughs to bring them back, even though there is no working process that will unfreeze them and bring them back to life, let alone a cure. It is a leap of faith into the future of course.
Hackers from nation states, including our own, have already taken huge swathes of encrypted data, the belief that because it’s encrypted it is of no use. Wake up people.
Why Stateless is important…
When I find the cipher key now or in the future I can read everything, as I think about and play-out going back to a time when the ‘state’ of something is known. Like using 20th century tech in the 17the century to win a war, influence the population and crack open secrets. So do not provide a state, of course in blockchain a link to the previous block hash is cojoined by time and infrastructure.
Can we believe if they did it?
The NEWS coming out is a Quantum Annealing machine got the job done according to various scientific media outlets — the wait is finally over with — China proclaiming they’ve cracked open RSA encryption with a 5760 qubit D-Wave machine. Others stated EEC is bust as well.
For those not sure how the dark arts of encryption work, many rely on simple mathematics — basic integer factorisation of large numbers where the permutations go beyond conventional computers processing capabilities. When you think about it its pretty poor defence against the dark arts relying on weak computation delivered by Von Neumann compute — passing instructions one at a time, is like thinking your abacus will never be bettered.
It is not really a defence with 1028bit keys? With 2048 used by many where claims of breach appear to prove the art of the possible. Do you keep increasing the string size, ignoring quantum effects reach a point where no matter the size and complex you’re done!
Quantum finds the Ace of Spades on a deck of 52 cards on one turn, in a deck of 52,000,000,000 in one turn. It is all at once computation at the atomic scale.
Announcement
https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/14/china_quantum_attack/
Many write about the breakthrough by the Chinese teams at Shanghai University all confirming they have indeed cracked Public Key Encryption, Coincidental timing just as Bitcoin reaches an all time high, and the total digital assets across everything exceeds $14trillion. Or is it?
It comes as no surprise that China out invests everyone in efforts to crack encryption using quantum — a stated national imperative part of the CCP plans. And our academic institutions all over the world have helped these and other nefarious parties learn the skills needed to steal everything.
Here is the PAPER outlining how…
Enjoy. http://cjc.ict.ac.cn/online/onlinepaper/wc-202458160402.pdf
Many will claim longer keys (strings of numbers essentially) extending to 50+ bits is the answer. But ultimately this plays into quantum hands where the probability is always 1.
Intelligentized Warfare is consuming all data encrypted or not…
When you add IoT devices as network endpoints, then wearables and other sensors — the escalation of what is called “Intelligentized Warfare” is revealled. The bulk capture of all data, encrypted or not on everything — human movement (telcos have this today), health records (government collude with big pharma today), spending patterns (banks & retail brands sell data) the list goes on. Then there is data about bioweapons, military, utilities (water, power) and who owns the land, a food, water, energy security everywhere remains at risk.
As so called ‘smart cities’ are positioned as the future that will essentially operate like ‘open prisons’ tracking and tracing, recording everything unless built as a Web3 enabled decentralised secure resistant blockchain infrastructure (did I just write that) where people have sovereignty over their data, their IP and their money which is already digital, as CBDC’s is just another grab at freedoms.
The threat is not just quantum computation — there is quantum sensing as deep sea warfare and space warfare all about quantum communications delivers the ultimate heist of raw data from all devices, all services and all locations.
It has been rumoured for some time China has built their own industrial complex to serve Intelligentized Warfare — demonstrated by exposing Microsoft, one of the weakest links in any IT system – a spy team had found the golden encryption key that unlocks US government email accounts, yes all of them. Exploiting the back link chatter and requirement to read, then write in what is an archaic client server, Web2 way of doing things. I wrote about the solarwinds hack previously on this Medium channel.
Blockchain and Decentralised ledgers remain vulnerable…
As Bitcoin pumps at a time of changing attitudes towards crypto in the incoming US administration and further pumping by Wall Street who smell a profit. Fiat is piling in, leveraging the few BTC left they’re intent on leveraging digital exchange tradable products (ETF) that are mostly synthetic off balance sheet instruments.
Your Bitcoins are not safe!
We are reminded elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is also claimed to have been breached, we know symmetric cryptography lost a few years back, followed by news the key exchange in asymmetric cryptography is exposed — quantum machines can work back to finding the ‘private keys’. Several quantum founders I know, believe asymmetric cryptography (involving key exchange) is close to falling, but what do they really know and what are they not telling us. Credible people developing powerful quantum enabled machines that are very good are precise tasks.
Then BOOM! It is all over.
Crypto infrastructure is fragmented and vulnerable
Whilst Bitcoin has never been breached, Wallets, Networks and Crypto Exchanges are frequently breached as a result of clunky user experience, disjointed set up, suspect founders and vulnerabilities in the ‘pipes’ that connect everything.
Human user errors remain the biggest issues, with phishing and traps to lure newbies into revealing too much. The User, the Exchange, the Custodian, the Recipient all connected across public comms lines and networks. Requiring different platforms, Apps open, passwords and authentication the Blockchain world remains clunky delivering a patchwork of User experiences that leave a lot to be desired.
The old concept of attacking the joins in the plumbing IS the primary strategy. Intercepting the messaging between layers and signals in the layers in the stack, especially when the stack is under different ownership, business model and location. Back in the 1970’s when I learned computer science I was always told that any important IT infrastructure needs to control its own tech stack — from bottom (hardware and processor messaging) to the top (User interface). One environment to defend and why the world’s most important systems still runs on mainframes.
In today’s decentralised open solutions, blockchain focus remains securing digital signatures as part of the key exchange, and chaining blocks for again create immutability relying on not enough compute to change history feels weak. However the typical blockchain solution relies of fragmented tech, often owned by different business models the joins connecting them are undefended — a few VPNs probably but the vast majority rely on the Internet or open vulnerable ‘cloud delivered’ components across public infrastructure.
What options do you have…
Simply put, 95% of blockchain infrastructure (Decentralised Ledgers) cannot defend against the quantum assault on its way, or maybe already here. Because they are built using a fragmented tech stack of different moving parts, owned by different parties, running different business models and sitting on different processors and even premises.
Layer 1 blockchain network with different Dapps on top, a Wallet and a Crypto Exchange in the middle, with a Custodian in the mix. Decentralised yes, fragmented yes, vulnerable yes. List of Wallet hacks.
Post Quantum era
I looked into Post Quantum security and approaches for securing infrastructure from ‘quantum attacks’ five of six years ago. There are several approaches suggested by NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology. The answer touted for many years is only Post Quantum approaches will work. The challenge, if this is an overlay solution it’s not a ‘belt and braces’ improvement, it is a moat and eventually hackers will find a way across. The same issues remain, cracks in the tech stack where the messaging fires all over the place.
Many use lattice based approaches advised by NIST or Hashed signatures that deliver levels of protection, but there are non that really defends cross all decentralised environments — both blockchain, DLTs and the end points used in Web3 architecture, specifically IoT end point devices, sensors and hardware.
The compromise has always been performance, as layers of extra protection is added, requiring extra overheads of processing to the layers and additional network and sub chain layers. The result is often unusable applications that are cumbersome, slow and cannot deliver economically for the Use Case. Worst still the tokenomics get bogged down where token value and velocity is weakened and everyone goes down with the ship. (another article maybe).
Enter DeQUIP
Stage left.
Have you come across Decentralised Quantum Uncrackable Infrastructure Protocol or DeQUIP announces Unbreakable security. I hadn’t and yes its worth a serious look.
Enter Quranium https://quranium.org/technical a new NIST approved, built for purpose, post quantum hybrid approach to defending blockchains and DLTs, and IoT devices ‘all at once’. “Built to be Uncrackable” is the mantra.
The thing I like about its potential, its built for purpose. A protocol network focuses on defending against SHORs and Groves algo’s that assumes help of a quantum machines — without compromising throughput and performance – uses components that together create an effect defendable infrastructure for real world applications — is the objective. A combination of elements the Quarium Layer 1 is a substantial step in the right direction and they have a lot of support and major brands banking on them succeeding.
More techie bit — skip if you want.
An architecture by design rather than a patch on top of something that was vulnerable. Uranium is built for purpose — not adapted like many others. It uses hand picked approaches that creates a hybrid architecture, quantum proofs and hybrid consensus in a ‘single stack’ which is important — the best NIST approved bits and pieces hard wiredd into a PoW core blockchain, with Proof of Truth, a BlockDag integrating SPHINCs with WOTS (hash based one time signature) which I like very much primarily because it delivers a ‘stateless system’.
Whilst blockchain claims to deliver immutability as everything is chained together and pinned to smart contracts which means they can fall together. By removing the cascade issues linked to smart contracts that have a known ‘state’, like dominos could all fall. The clever use of SHINCS adds scalability for high throughput is signed independently using the hash function to ‘shor-up’ both RSA and ECC, should get the Chinese hackers scratching their heads.
In a similar way Digital Transformation can never work, as it’s not built from scratch or for a single purpose, the overlays as ‘lipstick’ don’t convince anyone as the core has changed. Given client server architecture promotes inefficiencies, there will never be real transformation — just sticking plasters that after a short time get unstuck. Unfortunately blockchains have the same issue, unless built ground up for a purpose vulnerabilities remain, as we watch patches added that kills performance, L1’s soon fail and die off.
Bottom up by design to solve a real problem is the Quranium mission to defend decentralised operating models underpinned by reliable infrastructure that is robust and sits in a single stack. Definately worth a look.
Author. Nick Ayton is a Technologist, Futurist, Global Speaker and Filmmaker has been in the Crypto space since 2012 and the quantum space since 2018.