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 Post subject: Cryptography - For better or worse?
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 3:35 pm 
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Blokey being a noob about quantum mechanics in another thread reminded me of this story from last month

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7661311.stm

In summary, the technology for 'quantum encryption' has been proven to work. In laymans terms:

Data can be encrypted into a 'quantum stream'.
Due to the nature of quantum mechanics, the stream cannot be observed without altering it.
When it arrives at the destination, the computer can decode it happily.
If, however, a wiretap is placed at any point on the route with the aim of intercepting and then forwarding on the message, the very act of intercepting will change the original data stream.
The data stream suddenly fails the parity checks (makes sure the data hasn't been corrupted), the target system realises a tap has been activated, and can either shut down the transmission before any data is intercepted, or attempt a reroute through a different physical network.

Its an encryption system that cannot be broken, so says the laws of the universe.

As has been proven in the past, its only a matter of time before 'undesirable' groups get their hands on this kind of tech. At which point you can have terrorist cells on the opposite sides of the world communicating in complete faith that no-one knows what they're up to.

Scared? I'm starting to be.

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 Post subject: Re: Cryptography - For better or worse?
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 4:01 pm 
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Scary? Not more scary than the unbreakable encryption used today. If two parties want to communicate without being observed, that's already possible.

The prospect of quantum cryptography is indeed awesome. I heard about it a few years ago but it's really cool that they actually made a working example. On a related note, I was at Lund's University last week and listened to a lecture about (today's) crypthography which was actually really interesting =)

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 Post subject: Re: Cryptography - For better or worse?
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 4:18 pm 
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Well... Good for us and bad if the terrorists get their hands on it :D.

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 Post subject: Re: Cryptography - For better or worse?
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 4:23 pm 
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I dunno, despite what our overlords want to have us believe I reckon a lot of 'secure' cyphers have been broken. With the sheer level of computing power now available, espec to the US government, even a brute force attack is viable. And not wanting to sound like a conspiracist, but all those people running Folding At Home (including me). We've no idea what out system is actually crunching, they say its protein folding, but throw in a work unit consisting of a brute-force attack and it'd be cracked before the next Windows exploit is found.

Privacy has always been a weird one for me, yes I want to be able to carry out conversations in private cos who knows what embarrassing secrets could be revealed, but I'd like to know that someone somewhere is keeping an eye on transmissions coming out of caves in Afghanistan.

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NeverDie, why is it good for us? Come on, lets get some grey matter churning.

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 Post subject: Re: Cryptography - For better or worse?
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 4:32 pm 
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It's good for us because if the terrorists don't have the technology to break it then they will never know what we are talking about.

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 Post subject: Re: Cryptography - For better or worse?
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 11:03 pm 
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Could come in handy some day...

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 Post subject: Re: Cryptography - For better or worse?
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:17 am 
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PieMan wrote:
I dunno, despite what our overlords want to have us believe I reckon a lot of 'secure' cyphers have been broken. With the sheer level of computing power now available, espec to the US government, even a brute force attack is viable.

Umm.. With a 1024 or even 2048 bit key it's impossible even for the US government to crack. Especially if you keep changing the key every now and then.

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 Post subject: Re: Cryptography - For better or worse?
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 2:43 am 
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Isn't this essentially what the Darknet is?

I'm as much of a tech n00b as Blokey is, so I ask this in complete ignorance. FLAME ME AT YOUR OWN PERIL, FOR I WILL CRY. A LOT.

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