What options do we have if in a few years IBM’s commercial quantum platform matures to practical viability? You can be sure that governments are years ahead of IBM.
This seems like an existential threat. I’ve read things where people say that there are quantum-resistant algorithms but nothing I’ve seen has been reassuring. I’m hoping someone smarter can enlighten me.
Plot twist (fictitious): We thought [insert dictatorship] was preventing their citizens from investing and mining crypto to prevent foreign capital outflows. Instead, they could be planning to attack cryptocurrencies with quantum.
Super position is so weird, the only thing that I could think of right now is multiple giant keys and recursive obfuscation so the number of possible inputs compounds outside of the universe in magnitudes ( and even that isn’t really that good)
Or Implement Quantum protections as soon as they’re available!
I actually had an idea for a Cipher mechanism by converting char256’s to random 3binary alpha derived from one of the keys (example a = gbe b = iol < = wdn, this is for compatibility, also helps mitigate high use letters like r,s,t,e,l but itself isnt very hard, 3 is arbitrary, 2 would work but only 26^2 - 256 = 420 salt possibilities vs 26^3 - 256 = 17320) then through five different Enigma machines in various paths with various key mutations (besides the ones that already happen with the keypress) a normal 3 ring military enigma machine (some have four) has nearly 159 quintillion variations
Assuming the quantum computer could find that first round instantly it would then have to reapply the function to all results compensating for all possible key mutations and path variations of them and then repeat three more times, those numbers would have to be described with upward notation (at least three, five machines was an arbitrary choice of numbers, could be more, also doesn’t take into account any compatible pre encryption of the text (you could do hacker-type if you wanted) nor group sizing) I have yet to test much of any of it but it seems pretty sound, this being conducted in a simple linear fashion with no mutations would yield strong results too
Apparently it’s still “super weak compared to an intel 8008” but is the first commercially available quantum computer
if you’ve ever seen pictures of the one at UC Berkeley it’s the same thing except nicely packaged still requires tons of liquid nitrogen and a room the size of a garage to put in kind of like those old relay computers from the twenties https://qiskit.org (found this too)
We could focus on Zcash design and discuss failure modes while staying away from general quantum computations.
Shor algorithm for discrete log seems the only relevant general idea, instantiated for elliptic curves Proos-Zalka’2003. Probably this could be refined for pairing-friendly curves.
“Quantum-resistant elliptic curves” stackexchange discussion clearly states Shor algorithm and explains isogenies on supersingular elliptic curves, that could be considered a variant of Diffie-Hellman with no fast quantum algorithm known. It seems unlikely we could get both isogenies and pairing on the same curve.
With “DL solver” idea, I could imagine (1) recovering “toxic waste”, the secret argument value that SNARK polynomials are evaluated at; (2) signing key, and (3) incoming payments key.
Please let us avoid “spooky” stuff; remember the most constructive idea probably is avoiding real-life connections, stated as “shut up and calculate”, comparable to “code is law”.
actually an interesting thought. While not limited to solar flare it should include electricity outage as well, not?
We are so used to electricity that sometimes we forget that without electricity things go really bad really fast.
3 years ago in my small city we didn’t have electricty for 4 days due a snow storm and snow fall, which cut off all the electricity lines in my region. A sudden left in winter without heating, without phones, without cooking, without TV, without internet, light, PC, literally without anything but a book and some candles it was a real bad experience …
It would be neat to implement an offline sharded blockchain. Like people going back and forth through borders updating the ledger manually. It would be interesting to figure out a way to not be able to double spend and maintain zcash properties(zk, privacy, ect).
One way to prevent double spending might be some sort of time restriction (like request to spend three days before) or insurance with middle man(“i garantee [s]he is not double spending and if [s]he does i’ll cover the cost”).
Hope i didn’t go too much off topic. Just wanted to share a quick brainstorm(aka brain fart).
So if Zcash were to implement STARKs for Blockchain succinctness (like Coda) , scaling, as well as replacing zkSNARKs with STARKs for private transactions maybe the entire chain could be made quantum resistant.
I don’t envision a future where a fat kid in his mom’s basement has a Quantum Computer and is hacking ZCash. However, Q is an existential threat to all cryptological structures and there will be government actors actively working to undermine anything that’s encrypted. It’s unlikely any crypto is Q resistant right now. For all we know, some have already been hacked…shrugs…
STARKs aren’t practical for recursive composition because they are not “fully succinct”: the proof size and verification time depend on the statement size, even if only logarithmically.
Off topic but kinda spooky, super-ionic ice, basically once enough pressure and energy is applied to water the molecules are destroyed and the oxygen atoms move into a cubic lattice pattern with the free hydrogen flowing around like liquid, weird
