Timeline for What would happen if an alien race gave us a computer capable of 2^256 calculations per second?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
15 events
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| Aug 31, 2017 at 7:03 | comment | added | Display Name | It's not really true about human's ability to remember passwords. Many people already routinely use passwords they can't or don't want to remember and it's not a problem for them. If these passwords get larger (but not larger than, say, 1 MiB per password) then nothing will change drastically — HDDs are still cheap enough. | |
| Sep 6, 2016 at 21:08 | comment | added | cybernard | @Luann "it's not going to help you one bit when the server you're connected to is linked with a 1 Gbps cable" Hackers steal password hash by the millions every week there is a new data breach. So we take all the hackers raw dumps, and crack the passwords from that. Then login to their accounts and steal all their money and change their passwords. | |
| Sep 6, 2016 at 8:29 | comment | added | Stilez | @Luann - DNA or neuronal connections as a biometric? Those are probably not too far away (decades at most?) and potentially a huge bitcount equivalent. So maybe only current not future biometrics would be affected | |
| Sep 6, 2016 at 8:05 | comment | added | Luaan | @Stilez Well, the last time I worked with a fingerprint scanner, the pattern was something like 160 bytes, so even if we assume it has 100% perfect entropy, it only gives about 1280 bits. And they have nowhere near 100% perfect entropy - as Martin and Patrick noted, the scanner must be very forgiving, since the match is never even close to perfect. On most scanners, you can pick on a scale of "easy to match" versus "chance of mismatch". On the highest security settings, it may routinely take multiple tries to get through, even right after you made the pattern. Lowest mismatch one in hundred. | |
| Sep 6, 2016 at 8:02 | comment | added | Luaan | @cybernard That's all nice and fine, but it's not going to help you one bit when the server you're connected to is linked with a 1 Gbps cable :) Unless you suggest that the aliens also replaced all our networks with their magi-technology, as well as all the servers and all the other computers and all the paper... I/O is a two-way affair - if the device you're connecting to doesn't have the bandwidth, you're just as screwed if your computer doesn't :) | |
| Sep 6, 2016 at 3:21 | comment | added | cybernard | @Luaan "It will spend years waiting for the I/O". No it alien tech, they have crazy fast I/O and it won't be a problem. Even now we can get 2-4gb/s with and M2 ssd. An alien capable of 2^256 power per second will have I/O to spare. In order to achieve 2^256 it will need many times that in overall speed as encryption/decryption takes more than a single CPU function. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 19:32 | comment | added | Stilez | Quite a few biometric measures would be useless too. I don't know how many distinctive retinal or fingerprint patterns there are, but it might be possible to brute-force search the space. Especially since quite a few biometric traits vary even for a single person, so there has to be quite a wide space of biological traits encoded to the same biometric value | |
| Sep 3, 2016 at 10:12 | comment | added | user11445 | This will not make asymmetric encryption obsolete. The computer is fast but still polynomially bound. Increasing the key size for future encryption would be sufficient. | |
| Sep 3, 2016 at 4:48 | comment | added | Patrick M | @MartinCarney Even worse than that, Biometrics are terrible for encryption since they are so "fuzzy". They are sort of passable for authentication, but not as keys/passwords for encryption. This is why iphones can't be unlocked with a fingerprint after reboot: security.stackexchange.com/a/134393/20035 | |
| Sep 2, 2016 at 19:11 | comment | added | Marsh | Biometrics are poor security, as @EricTowers rightly points out. Worse is when your biometrics do change, and you can't get into your stuff any more. Voice authorization when you have a cold? Fingerprint scan after you burn your finger? Breath analyzer after you eat some really hot curry? "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." | |
| S Sep 2, 2016 at 14:37 | history | edited | Bellerophon | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 2, 2016 at 14:30 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Sep 2, 2016 at 13:04 | comment | added | Eric Towers | ... and biometrics are not a panacea. A password that can never be changed and that you are constantly expressing in public is quickly useless. | |
| Sep 2, 2016 at 11:55 | comment | added | Luaan | No, it will make asymmetric encryption obsolete. It will do nothing to symmetric encryption, and a 10-letter password will still be as weak/strong as before. It's very nice that such a computer could try so many passwords in a second, but that's quite irrelevant when it will spend years waiting for the I/O :) | |
| Sep 2, 2016 at 8:25 | history | answered | Stig Hemmer | CC BY-SA 3.0 |