Today was one of those days.
I didn't put on pants at all.
This is despite having a client session to start the morning. But it was okay, because I had a shirt on and my hair was done, so that was enough when meeting remotely. But I was at home for the rest of the day also and after the session, I spent a couple of hours cleaning and reorganizing our bathroom drawers and medical cabinet, making sure that is all in order again. Nothing I did required putting on pants.
Maybe tomorrow.
Other than cleaning, I wrote a bit and also some reading, where I came across the update on Google's quantum computing shenanigans and how fast the Willow chip can process. This of course makes me think about security and how secure the various blockchains are under that level of scrutiny, and I suspect that while the Bitcoin keys can survive for now, it won't be that long until it is going to be an issue. Which got my pantless ass thinking.
I was wearing boxers.
But I was thinking about digital security and how no matter how robust the algorithms may be, eventually they are all going to fail under pressure. The more valuable the prize behind the gate, the more attack it is going to face, as there is more incentive to put the effort in to break down the door.
Is there a solution to this?
Essentially, the vast majority of encryption offers little more protection against a quantum codebreaker than a rice paper wall against a hurricane does. This means that all forms of digital security are going to be put under threat, unless they find a way to solve the problem. And while there are many ways, I think that one of the things that will have to happen, is we are going to need to learn to be far more transparent - we need to be visible. Physical. Physical keys like Trezor and Ledger go a long way, but in this day and age,
Not very convenient.
One of the biggest risk factors for our digital security, is our laziness and strong desire for things to be easy. Crappy passwords, cloud storage, password keepers, automatic sign-ons, finger-print scanners and facial recognition. All the things that save us a bit more time, so we can stare at a screen a little sooner. Physical keys are a hinderance that slow us down, plus, we don't want to go everywhere with it around our necks, just in case.
There are other ways to throw a kink in the chain hack too, and some are quite simple, like lockout after unsuccessful attempts. Sure, a quantum computer might be able to crack the encryption in seconds, but if it has to wait a minute after every unsuccessful attempt to verify, it is going to take a trillion years again, unless supremely lucky. Things like 2FA for the most part are pretty useless against a quantum hacker, because hacking both factors as they are today isn't too difficult perhaps. However, it will still require some added organization and alignment.
As the attack vector risks grow, the encryption and security development will continue to advance also and I suspect there might be some very interesting solutions that will arise. However, I still think that ultimately, the "nothing to hide" security is probably going to be the safest. It is like someone who has nothing, has nothing to lose. What I mean by this in this particular case though, is that we could develop techniques that mean that there is no way for a transaction to happen without our permission, even if someone or something had all of the required information, including the key.
We could be pantless, and still protect our modesty.
I don't know how it will look at that point, but what I do think is that we are now trying to predict attack vectors from artificial intelligences which will out think us in unpredictable and novel ways. They might be able to mimic our brain patterns, so we will probably have to out move them physically to stay ahead. But physical is always less convenient than virtual, because presence is required, and we have been embracing the remote, virtual, proxied life for a long time.
It is something that many people might not consider with something like a remote meeting, but like today, while I was there, it wasn't me. What the other participants saw was a digital representation of me, an avatar. And, if there was some great AI, it would be totally mimicable and potentially undetectable. They talk about the Turing test, but ultimately, most people are pretty predictable and average, so mimicking the average person, isn't that hard. Visually it is possible now, and I am pretty sure that soon people will be sending Copilot into their meetings for them, and then providing a summary.
No shirt, and no need to do the hair either.
I don't know about you, but I don't really want to live in a world where I have to constantly think about the security of my assets. I think that there are enough things going on in the world and places that would benefit more from our attention, than just trying to protect ourselves from thieves, whether they be of physical or digital in nature. There are better things we could be doing with or time, right?
Reading some of the discussions around the quantum computing topics today, it is pretty clear that the majority of people are thinking about security, and protecting their privacy in some way. It is interesting, because with all that computing power, you'd think we would look at what it can do to build better a better future, rather than just optimize and protect the crap we already have.
We tend to think easy too.
But what do I know, I am still not wearing pants.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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