WEBVTT - Cryptically Quantum 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.760 Forward Thinking either everyone, and welcome to Forward Digging, the 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.440 podcast that looks at the future and says you spend 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.600 me right round, baby, right round. I'm job in Strickland, 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.880 I'm Lauren, and I'm Joe McCormick. So, guys, have you 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:29.200 ever needed to, you know, have a nice, quiet, secure 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.360 communication with someone or something? Yeah, I might need to 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.599 have a secure communication. Let's say if I'm dealing with 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:41.120 an Internet seller, So maybe a seller on Etsy who 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:48.320 has created glass handcrafted Star Wars action figures with with 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:53.640 with stained tinted coloring and oddly specific. That sounds precarious 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.360 but beautiful. Yeah, it's also not what I thought you 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:58.520 were gonna say, because internet seller, I thought you were 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.720 either talking about someone who sells in nets or perhaps 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:06.800 or perhaps a dark basement of the Internet exactly. But 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.440 now I've got you all right, So a vendor, a 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.560 merchant on the Internet, and you want to make a transaction, 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.839 you will hear all my special numbers, right. You would 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.600 want those special numbers to say yeah, but you would 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.080 not want those special numbers to get out and about 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.520 to the general public, where they could all make their 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.800 own nefarious purchases using your hard earned money. Right, they 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.520 could go buy their own glass memorabilia or or let's 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.280 let's say that you are just trying to send a 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.600 message to someone and you don't necessarily want the entire 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:43.399 world to understand what exactly you are saying. You know, right, 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:45.880 like things right, right, Like if if I wanted to 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.480 send Lauren an email talking smack about a certain other 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.120 host of this show, um, and I didn't want that 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.400 host to be privy to all the things I had 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.720 to say about him. Sure, yeah, And of course no 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.440 one believes this because you just talked smack right out loud. 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.880 But alright, that's but hypothetically, if you didn't want me 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.519 to know, I'm sorry, you didn't want this other host 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.600 to know, then this would be important. You would want 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.440 to be able to hide the information. Thus, Uh, this 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:17.640 is of course not new to the internet. You know, 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.800 the idea of being able to hide information so that 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:25.360 you can send messages, uh, discreetly, secretly. This is not 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.520 something that's that's brand new. This is an ancient idea. 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.680 Oh no, of course, I mean secrets are power, it's 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.440 the it's one of the main things we've got going 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.520 for us as a species. We've learned how to leverage 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.239 privileged information. Yes, you know something they don't know. When 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.720 that gives you an advantage, right, Uh, you know obviously 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.320 if you are able to maintain that advantage, then that 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.400 gives you, uh well, prolonged advantage. You don't want that 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:54.800 to suddenly become common knowledge because then suddenly it's a 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.359 it's a level playing field again, and who knows, some bigger, 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.720 stronger person is going to come around and take all 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.360 your stuff. So in the in the ancient world, we 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.720 use things called ciphers, which allowed us to uh to 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.399 jumble up a message so that only the person who 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.239 sends it and and the person who receives it ideally 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.079 have any chance of figuring out what that messages. Now, 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.440 that just might mean that you have an agreed upon 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.520 set of rules, which means when you get a message, 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.680 you look at the message, the jumbled up message, and 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.119 you apply those set of rules to it to unscramble 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.680 it and see what the actual message is. Right. So 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.400 the dirt simplest version of this would be just say, 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:40.080 like an alpha numeric scramble, So you say A is 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.240 one and B is two, and you write, you translate 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.800 your message in whatever language you're writing into numbers. Right, 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:48.360 the same kind of thing that you probably did to 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.320 obscure notes when you were passing them in class when 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.400 you were in like elementary school. Right, And he's a 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:55.080 B and a besa C. No one's ever going to 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.600 figure it out. Yeah, Yeah, these are all very common, 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.480 very simple ciphers. Now in the world of the Internet, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.320 in the world of computers, these sort of things don't 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.520 don't fly. It's not going to work anymore because it's 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.120 pretty easy to figure that one out. So we're talking 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.640 about specifically, uh, cryptography in general, which is the whole 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:20.960 science of making stuff secret, and then encryption in particular, 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:25.280 which is an implementation of cryptography. And the reason why 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.880 I say that is that frequently people will interchange these 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.600 two terms, but they do mean different things. We'll probably 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:37.560 do it on this podcast. Everybody uses encryption, cryptography, cryptology 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.200 that they'll get jumbled up, right, And and I admit, 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.080 I mean I do this all the time. I it's 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.440 not because I don't appreciate that there are differences. It's 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.200 just that my brain starts taking shortcuts and then I 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.960 get less accurate in my description. But yes, cryptography the 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.719 overall field encryption a specific implementation of cryptography where you 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.520 are encrypting a mess it's using some sort of cipher 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.400 or key, and then someone else has to use a 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:08.680 decoder key to get at the original message. And if 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.520 everything is cool, then you don't have to worry about 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.640 anyone else intercepting that message and knowing what's going on. 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:20.039 But the problem is, things aren't really cool in the 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:24.040 real world, are they not. When you send a message 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.800 to somebody, it's generally, I think assumed within the world 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:33.360 of cryptography that you should always just take as an 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.159 assumption that somebody's listening. Yes, I mean we're we're living 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:41.280 in a world now where it is incredibly easy for 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.120 people to listen in, whether on purpose or not. I 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.040 remember like this this applies to lots of different fields, 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.120 not just Internet communication. It could be a telephone, right, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:56.400 I remember using wireless telephones where occasionally it would pick 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.960 up conversations other people were having that because the channel 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.359 as were close enough where I was getting interference and 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.440 I was so eventually one one part of one of 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.680 the conversations would kind of go like hello, right, is 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.520 that are we who else is here? Or I would 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:13.760 talk into it and then it would be clear that 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.400 the other parties on the line couldn't hear me. But 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:18.960 yet I was like, well, I don't want to listen 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.840 in uh, but I would like to make a phone call. 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.000 So I'm going to go and use one of the 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:26.760 hard lined phones that I have instead of one of 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.760 these super cheap early eighties wireless monstrosities. Of course, your 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.760 hardline phone can be tapped just as easily, or someone 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:36.600 in another branch of the house could pick up another 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.000 receiver of it. Right, So in this case, we are 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.040 going to be talking about some some famous people. Uh, 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.120 those famous people are not really people. There are actually 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:51.520 their names are placeholders for any two entities that wish 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.400 to exchange information. This would be Alice and Bob. You 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.680 may have heard of Alice and Bob. Alie and Bob. They're, 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.120 like I said, placeholders. You want you it's so that 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:04.119 you can give examples so people can wrap their heads 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:08.359 around the way this kind of secret communication works. So 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.560 it's not Alice in Wonderland and Bob Seeker. It's I mean, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.680 it could be we might, sure, but we're talking about 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.760 a third person as well, we're talking also about Eve. Yes, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.840 Eve would be a short for Eve's dropper clever huh 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.240 Sole See what they did there. Eve wants to listen 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:30.320 in on this conversation between Alis and Bob for whatever reason. 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:34.560 Doesn't matter. We're just talking about, you know again, concepts here. Eve. Also, 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.560 it does not necessarily have to be an actual conscious 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.920 person or entity. No, Eve could be a computer. Eve 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.360 could also just be an environment because in this case, 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.280 when we get into uh A later in the podcast, 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.480 we're gonna be talking about the type of cryptography that 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.840 um has some limitations around it, and the environment can 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.960 actually play a role in messing up that cryptography. But 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.360 in general, we think of Eve as some entity trying 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:04.840 to get intercept messages, usually in the middle between Alison Bob, 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.760 to try and decipher exactly what is going on. Okay, So, 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.200 in the world today, if Alison Bob want to have 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.560 a totally private conversation that nobody else can know about 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.200 over the Internet, what is the main way we're going 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:23.800 to use to communicate privately? Uh That would be using 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.520 key encryption, a public key and a private key. This 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.200 is based off something called r s A encryption. It's 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.240 actually uh, that named after the folks who came up 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.840 with it. But the idea here is that you have 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.400 a public key that allows people to encode messages that 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.040 are going to be sent to you, and then you 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.199 have a private key that allows you to decode those messages. 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:49.240 And then if you want to send a message back 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.120 to someone, you use their public key to encode it 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.040 and they'll use their own private key to decode it. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.280 So the public key is something you can send out 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.440 to the world and it's fine because all it does 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:03.320 is in code messages. It doesn't decode anything um And 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.240 the private key you keep to yourself and you don't 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.080 let anyone get hold of it because obviously that would 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.160 mean they could decode any message meant for you. So 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.319 in this case, if Alice once said Bob a message, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.200 Alice would use Bob's public key, Bob would use his 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.040 private key to decode it. Then if Bob wanted to respond, 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.360 he would use Alice's public key, Alice would use her 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:27.680 private key to decode it. Theoretically, everything should remain safe. Okay, 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.319 but wait a second, how do these keys actually work together? 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.600 Because I wonder if there's a way to exploit this process. Um, 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.120 it's it's interesting that you asked that question. So there 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.040 are different ways to create encryption keys, but one of 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.160 the most popular is prime factorization. Tell me how it works. Okay, 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:47.920 you know what a prime number is, right, It's a 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.319 number that is only divisible by itself and one. That's correct. 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.960 So if you were to take a two prime numbers, 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.960 So figure out two prime numbers, uh, three and seven? 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:01.839 All right, and then you multiply the two of those 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:06.920 together you get all right. So if I gave you 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.480 just the twenty one and I told you it's your 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.160 job to figure out which two prime numbers I used 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.840 to multiply together to get to twenty one, you would 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.720 have to start going through and looking at the divisors 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:19.600 for twenty one and figuring it out. Now, that one's 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.319 pretty easy, right, But when you get into very large numbers, 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.719 there's a lot of different possibilities. Yeah. Yeah, it might 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.240 be worth dwelling for a minute on why that's hard 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.760 to do. There's no just simple equation for how to 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.080 get those prime numbers. You have to try them one 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.920 at a time. So you have to take, okay, is 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.000 two times two, that's not twenty one? Okay, two times three, 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.240 that's not twenty. Really, you would just say to one, 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:47.280 is twenty one divisible divisible by two? And if so 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.760 is the other? Uh? Is the other number also a prime? 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:52.679 So you can do it that way. So you take 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:54.760 twenty one and you say, all right, let's go to 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.160 by two. All right, that's that doesn't work. Twenty one 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.800 divide by three. That gets seven. Wait a minute, three 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:02.280 and there are both prime numbers, so that'd be pretty easy. 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.760 But yeah, but if you if you're talking about enormous 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:06.880 prime numbers, and when I say enormous, I'm talking about 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.640 something that has maybe you know, forty digits or more 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.199 behind it. You know, that's a huge prime number or 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:17.360 you know, huge prime number, and you multiply it by 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:19.720 another huge prime number that has an equal number of 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:24.600 digits behind it. You get an incredibly enormous product. And 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.640 this is the basis of your encryption. Uh. Then working 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.600 backwards trying to figure out which two prime numbers made 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.760 that product is incredibly difficult. It would take a classical 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:41.239 computer working on a single core processor years, maybe centuries 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.600 to figure it out. I've heard it often expressed that 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:47.280 it would take more than a person's lifetime to solve 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.480 these on a classical machine. Yeah. So the three guys 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.120 that came up with this, their last names were Rivest 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:58.920 still are Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman. So you've got that, uh, 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:00.640 And they were the ones who who came up with 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:05.280 this this general idea which has been used extensively since then. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.679 And um, basically that's the the idea you use. You've 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.280 got this product which you can then allow people to 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.040 encode things. Um using this, you know, it's kind of 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.760 like another mash up type deal. The coded message gets 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.840 sent to you. Because you have the the actual prime 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:25.920 numbers that were used to make that product, you can 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.800 decode the message. If you don't have those two prime numbers, 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.480 you can't decode it. So that's the general idea. And 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.400 because it's such a hard problem that computers normally would 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.400 take a very long time to solve, it was considered 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.400 extremely secure. Well but is it still extremely secure? If 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.240 if it's so difficult to crack, then well, how is 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.720 it vulnerable? It depends on It depends on the determination 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.679 and resources of your eve that that's exactly right. So 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:58.120 the reason it's secure is because of the limitations of computers. 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.560 But if you were just to say, imagine you had 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.000 a computer that was way, way, way, way way more 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.880 powerful than your standard computer today, this problem would start 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.400 becoming a lot less of a problem. And in fact, 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:17.160 we can sort of create these situations today by say, 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.080 teaming up a lot of computers together. Right, if you 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.920 either had a supercomputer that had lots and lots of 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:27.080 processing cores, and you created a program to look for 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:34.200 the prime, uh the factorization of any number, and you 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.840 allowed it so that it could take advantage of all 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.320 those processor course and start solving things in parallel, you 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.079 cut down on the amount of time it's going to 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.800 take to do the overall problem because you've got multiple 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.200 cores all working on this. Or if you are able 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.480 to link together a bunch of computers to essentially do 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.720 the same thing, where each computer is working on part 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.000 of this problem. Let's say that a computer just has 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.480 a a chunk of numbers that it's looking at as 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.760 it goes through. I'll take the first thousand prime numbers, 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.760 and Joe across the network. You take the next thousand, Yeah, 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.720 and you're you've got you know, maybe hundreds of computers 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:12.720 in this network. This is something that someone with a 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.440 zombie army, a botan net could do. They've infected a 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.000 bunch of computers. They're using their processors to do whatever 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:21.800 one of those things could be, to try and do 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.240 a brute force attack. That's what we call it, because 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.600 you're using just brute computing force to go through all 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.840 the potential possibilities to try and find the actual two 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.760 numbers that were used to multiply together and make that product. Yeah, 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.520 you're just doing trillions and trillions of calculations spread out. 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.680 But even with this approach, R s A is still 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.800 pretty secure. But just because of the scale of the 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.240 math involved, the kinds of computers we have today, even 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:54.360 if we imagine these brute force scenarios, it's still pretty secure. 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.640 It is pretty secure if you've got someone who's really, 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:02.880 really determined and they're using an advanced computer, especially one 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.640 that is able to take advantage of graphics processors, which 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.160 you know, graphics processors are meant to process graphics on 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.720 your computer. But a lot of hackers have been using 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.800 it as a way of creating another avenue for brute 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.480 force attacks. It's something that is possible to crack, it's 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.640 not easy to do, and it's still is going to 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.440 take time, depending upon you know, how resourceful that hacker is, 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.040 how many machines they might have at their disposal. But 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.080 it's it's one of those things where you know, the 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.440 more the larger year numbers that you're using in your encryption, 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.520 the more time is required or the more processing powers 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.680 required to break that encryption, and the less likely it's 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.160 going to happen because the number of people who have 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.320 that capability and that desire starts to shrink. You know, 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.360 the more complex it gets, the fewer people are going 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.560 to say, yeah, that's worth my time. Sure. But okay, 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.800 So we're living in the incredible future, right and we 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.400 we have or we are starting to develop, at any rate, 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.240 computers that are different from the classical computers that we 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.480 have been talking about. We've talked on this very show before, 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:13.520 in fact, about quantum computers computer so you know we 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.880 talked when we talked about quantum computers, one of the 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.280 things we discussed is how they might not really even 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.960 provide an advantage if you're just talking about wanting to 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.560 stream video and send emails and browse the web. So 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:27.920 why on earth would somebody want to build a quantum 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.320 computer if it doesn't provide an advantage of those things. Well, yeah, 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.280 I mean it's it's not necessarily going to help your 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.320 twitch skills at call of duty. But what it could 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.200 do is allow you to solve certain types of problems 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.200 much more quickly than you would with a classical computer. 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:47.800 But like these problems specific exactly because you've got cubits. Cubits, yeah, 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.400 as opposed to bits, right, So a bit is a 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.240 bit of data. It's a zero oral one. It's kind 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.200 of like an on or off switch or an often 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.520 on switch off your time zero and one. Uh. Cubits 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.480 are quantum bits, and one of the properties of the 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.760 quantum world is called superposition, where you can have a 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:13.880 quantum particle that can inhabit multiple states simultaneously. So, for example, 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.640 we talk about photons and their spin, and we'll talk 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:19.840 about them more in a minute, but photon can have 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:25.480 various types of spin, vertical, horizontal, diagonal. In the quantum state, 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.680 it can have all of these simultaneously in superposition. So 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.480 a cubit can be both a zero and the one 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.280 at the same time, and technically all values in between. 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.160 So if you have cubits and you have enough of them, 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.800 like you have a quantum computer that has a lot 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.560 of cubits, you can then solve certain really difficult problems 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:51.239 like prime factorization, all in parallel, because it's essentially this 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.800 is oversimplifying, but essentially doing all the calculations simultaneously. So 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:57.960 at any rate, if you've got a quantum computer that 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.960 has a significant enough number of cubits, then in theory, 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.199 you could break this kind of prime factorization problem in 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.640 no time. Okay, But but I mean quantum computers, although 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.080 they do exist. I mean, who has the time, or 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.800 the money, or the resources or the desire to possibly 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.119 own such a fascinating and and rare piece of machinery. 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.000 Who also wants to know all of our secrets? We've 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.280 now entered into the Jonathan Lauren and Joe get On 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:32.280 some more government lists part of the podcast. Uh yeah, 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.440 the n s A. Yeah. So it turns out, among 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.800 the many things we learned from the leaked documents that 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.919 Edward Snowden provided about the n s A, one of 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.560 the things was we discovered a seventy nine point seven 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:51.320 million dollar research project known as Penetrating Hard Targets of 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.320 the n s A, and it was very interested in 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:58.640 building quote a cryptologically useful quantum computer. So I hope 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.639 you like your email with the side of spying, because 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:03.239 this is on the way. The n s A has 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:07.639 specifically expressed interest in creating quantum computers that can do 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:13.160 that brute force mathematical attack to decode your encrypted messages. Right, 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.240 it's essentially going to sit there and make private keys. 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:20.760 The private public key encryption technique that we've really been 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.240 reliant upon for more than a couple of decades now 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.320 completely useless. It will essentially be one of those things 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.480 that if they direct their attention to you, they will 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.400 be able to break that key and read all everything 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.760 that's coming to you. Right. And so part of the 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.439 problem is, because all of this research is classified, we 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.240 don't know how far along they are on this path. 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.040 I mean, you might think that they're ahead of where 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.040 the private labs are today, or you might think they're 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.320 running neck and neck with them. We don't really know, 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.040 but we at least know that they are really interested 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.800 in this and are willing to spend money on it. Okay, 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:57.919 but part of part of the game here, you know, 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.600 you're always going to have people who are trying to 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.040 keep something secret and people who are trying to figure 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:08.159 those secrets out, and as the technology of of one increases, 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:12.119 the other has to in order to compete. So you know, 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:16.480 there are people who are working on creating quantum cryptography 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.040 to help solve this entire problem for us, right, Yeah, 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.879 So we go to another quantum technology basically to offset that. 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.160 So the secret breakers are going to get a big 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.760 advantage with quantum computers, but only because we are using 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.000 classical computers to set up our original encryption. If we 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:38.000 move to ye, a quantum system of of being able 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.800 to hide what we're saying. Actually, well, yeah, it's a 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.240 quantum framework. You can still use classical computers to to 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.240 do the communication. Yeah, you need you need a quantum 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.520 emitter is what you're gonna need. I can actually explain 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.840 what we're talking about here with quantum cryptography, at least 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:57.200 on a high level. When you get down to it, 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.920 you start getting into quantum weirdness that I know happens. 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.840 But that's different from saying I understand it, right, Okay, 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.280 So I have a pretty good way I think of 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:12.440 getting into how quantum cryptography works. And so it's this question, 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:15.600 why even use a public key in the first place, 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:20.440 Why can't you just share a private key between Alison Bob, 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:25.199 so they've got a a private uh decode or algorithm 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.359 known only to them, and then they just use that. 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.080 Why even put half of that key out there for 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.600 people to use in a brute force attack. Well, the 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.439 answer is kind of obvious because in order to do that, 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.400 they'd have to share the private key over the Internet. 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.520 If someone's eavesdropping like Eve, and Eve intercepts the private key, 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.640 then even you've just given Eve the magic decoder ring 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.520 to decode all the messages. Right, So ideally, the best 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.199 case scenario would be that Alison Bob have a private 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.520 key known only to them. But that really only works 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:56.240 in the real world if I don't know, if they 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.600 share it somehow physically in the same location, if they 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:02.479 go up to each other and whisper it to one 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.720 another in a completely darkened and sound proof room. If 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.480 perhaps at one thirty in the morning, Alice here's a 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:14.320 gentle scratching near the window, sees Bob outside whispering it's time. 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.480 Obviously that is not practical. If, say, the if you 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.840 are the Alice and the Bob you want to communicate with, 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:23.159 is some store online that you want to do business with. 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:25.240 You're not going to go meet up somewhere, you might 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:27.680 as well just do the transaction in the physical place. 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:31.080 I I sometimes do go up to brick and mortar 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:34.720 stores at one thirty in the morning and whisper into 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:39.800 their walls yes, and they say no, it's the secrets, 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.320 will be all right. So getting away from the creepy 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:46.200