Internet has become a dangerous place a war zone Pentagon said

www.newscientist.com...

Only solution in my opinion is 100% secure Internet traffic, like the Chinese do with Quantum Encryption, when such a messages is intercepted the messages is destroyed, no man-in-the-middle attack possible.

www.computerworld.com...

OK terrorists would also have then 100% secure communication, but everybody else also, honest civilians, bonafide companies, decent governments and politicians, hardworking intelligence agents in the field, so everybody, everybody equal.

...no more secrets, total awareness... sucks => this leads to total chaos in the world

Hmm while 100% privacy would be idea and I am personally all for it, I also realize there is a need for 100% disclosure. The biggest problem is finding the right balance between the two.

That actually sounds like a pretty good safeguard. I know that some hijacking software takes people through a site on route to a destination, would that stop that from happening?

a reply to: galien8

Theres no such thing as 100% pure security, at the last time i checked (been a while) that generally about 20-30% uncertainty in such quantum transfers and never mind the practical effort of deploying them and all the super cooled stuff required.

Everything is hackable given enough time and effort anyway and thats why you are generally advised to layer security to make the effort more than the value its worth and it should also be worth noting any sort of encryption will help if the spooks have a mini camera pointing at you screen and watching everything you do.

There is a principle of total security but for the effort of sending your order for a pizza online its probably a rather large slice of over kill.

Here's the problem with Quantum computers.

The cooling. Currently a Quantum CPU needs something like -200 degrees to keep itself running without burning up.

That sort of cooling just isn't available on the consumer market, or even the business market. At least not for an amount that makes it worth buying at the moment.

As far as security is concerned, it won't be any better or worse really. A quantum type of encryption can and will be broken by other quantum based software that hackers will no doubt create once the technology is available to the average consumer.

~Tenth

No amount of security will be provided that governments can't get into. The software that lets the governments in will make their way to the black markets and there goes security again. It's a vicious cycle with no logical end in sight. (like 10th was saying)

I'm more interested in the mental side of the dangers of the current internet landscape. Just look around here for an example. Notice how, for sake of better terminology, some people are straight up radicalized over their perceived interest groups? The pro/anti mentality has been strengthened and it's damaging our collective. I think this could be intentional.

People are obsessing in growing numbers about how to stop our upcoming President like it's a good thing to do... Not even noticing how broken and dangerous to the whole system that is. Are there problems, sure, but destabilization isn't the answer and that's exactly what's being promoted and fostered.

Every day the obsessed get deeper into it and through an online vehicle they're promoting their craziness as positive. It's not a good thing at all. Talk about war online, remember the human angle too.

originally posted by: rickymouse
That actually sounds like a pretty good safeguard. I know that some hijacking software takes people through a site on route to a destination, would that stop that from happening?

That would still be possible but has no use, because the message cannot be "tapped" it would be destroyed

a reply to: Maxatoria

you must not order the large pizza slices anyway, are you aware of the cholesterol problem in the West?

originally posted by: tothetenthpower

As far as security is concerned, it won't be any better or worse really. A quantum type of encryption can and will be broken by other quantum based software that hackers will no doubt create once the technology is available to the average consumer.

~Tenth

OK we need something (more practical) than Vernam Cipher, which is unpractical yet mathematical proven 100% secure, when encryption / decryption key is longer than the message and only used once

originally posted by: Noncents

destabilization isn't the answer and that's exactly what's being promoted and fostered.

Correct! I have stopped trolling

a reply to: galien8
That's great. I didn't know you were a political troll at all and that was in no way intended as a slight against you. More something that I think needs to be blasted from the rooftops right now.

You've brought one heck of a question to the table and I'm enjoying looking into this a bit. It's a tough problem. I love the wide world of quantum theory and where we're going in regards to computing and security. I think one day we'll get to a point where the average person can have a quantum computer in their homes but the vast majority won't need them, they're not good for regular consumer use. But if that tech can be used for security then it will be marketed that way and eventually become a standard. Maybe. I did think the regular consumer would have a Cray in their house by now too though so, lol, maybe not.

Security is an illusion though. Whatever we get will have back doors or some way to get in. When that's no longer an option I think we'll see heavy handed internet regulation which could be worse than just maintaining an insecure system.

a reply to: Noncents

man-in-the-middle can maybe completely be excluded, but problem remains man-on-client, example you have a quantum encryption box, what happens in the box? hardware viruses (a chip on motherboard, hardware zero day exploits, embedded virus programs in hardware chips and what have ye)

a reply to: galien8

It's going to be as secure as the software and hardware makers make it. Usually speaking, that's less secure than they are willing to tell you.

They will need the quantum encryption though. The internet of things is here, and the first person to die from a heart attack cause some ahole hacked into his pacemaker, well, that's when you'll see the real controls start.

~Tenth

a reply to: galien8

Its not 100% secure as someone could be watching and have seen the original un-encrypted text with lets say a hidden camera for example planted by some spooks. The data transmission system may be 100% secure but if someone else reads the message before hand then its useless.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
The cooling. Currently a Quantum CPU needs something like -200 degrees to keep itself running without burning up...
As far as security is concerned, it won't be any better or worse really. A quantum type of encryption can and will be broken by other quantum based software that hackers will no doubt create once the technology is available to the average consumer.

You're right about the cooling problem and the practical limitations of that, but if you can get the cooling and solve all the other technical problems, I can't understand why you say it's not better. If all of the considerable practical and technical limitations can be overcome, it would be more secure:

cs.stanford.edu...

Quantum cryptography, which uses photons and relies on the laws of quantum physics instead of "extremely large numbers," is the cutting edge discovery which seems to guarantee privacy even when assuming eavesdroppers with unlimited computing powers.

It's not that the message can't be intercepted, it can, but such interception would be detected the instant it happened, shutting down the communication in a properly configured system, so it really does make a MITM type attack impossible. There's no way around this unless there's either some kind of flaw in the implementation or in quantum theory itself. The former is possible but the latter seems unlikely.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

You're right about the cooling problem and the practical limitations of that, but if you can get the cooling and solve all the other technical problems, I can't understand why you say it's not better. If all of the considerable practical and technical limitations can be overcome, it would be more secure:

It's not that it won't be better encryption, of course it will, but over time, all encryption ends up failing to be 100% secure.

There's no way around this unless there's either some kind of flaw in the implementation or in quantum theory itself. The former is possible but the latter seems unlikely.

like anything you could program a break down in that process that allows interception. I'm not a big quantum guy, but I have a few friends who work in the field and they all have the same outlook. It'll be amazing for the first 10 or 15 years, you will have 100% solid encryption, but after that, somebody will build software or hardware that can circumvent it.

I really hope I'm wrong and we just get 100% encryption forever, but I feel like the powers that be, as silly as it sounds, won't like that and will do all they can to convince software and hardware manufacturer's to play ball like they already do.

~Tenth

a reply to: tothetenthpower
In theory it really is better because of the laws of quantum mechanics which are unlikely to be wrong in a way that would cause quantum cryptography to fail.

But yes of course if the implementation deviates from theory in some way such as being sabotaged, the sabotage could result in a compromise and the NSA is pretty clever. They surprised even me by compromising the millions of hard drives we've been buying for over a decade, which is a mind-boggling hack in scope, severity and sneakiness doing at least some of it apparently inside the facilities of the hard drive makers without their knowledge. A group that dedicated to being sneaky can probably find some way to sabotage the implementation of a quantum cryptography system. Still, in theory without such sabotage, it should be impossible to eavesdrop which can't be said with alternate forms of cryptography.

That won't help the internet in general. One of the biggest threats I see for general internet users is that so many websites require _javascript to function that it's hard to surf the net without _javascript. Once someone has that foot in your door to run code on your system, you are vulnerable. That's one of the avenues that people making botnets of zombie PCs use to commandeer them. This is the real war:

Hacker Lexicon: Botnets, the Zombie Computer Armies That Earn Hackers Millions

Zombie armies aren’t just invading movie screens these days. They’re also taking over the Internet in the form of massive botnets.

A botnet is an army of computers, all infected with the same malware, that gives a bot herder remote control of these computers in order to surreptitiously commandeer them without their owners’ knowledge. The bot herder can send instructions to the network of computers from a command-and-control server to siphon credit card numbers and banking credentials from them or use them to launch DDoS attacks against web sites, deliver spam and other malware to victims, or conduct advertising click fraud.

I've whitelisted ATS to allow them to run scripts on my computer so right now I'm trusting them to not infect my computer, but 99.99% of the sites on the internet I don't trust and don't allow to run scripts. I'm in the minority as everyone else I know allows scripts to run everywhere and then they call me asking for help cleaning up their infections they get from visiting sites that aren't as reputable as ATS.

The problem is not with the internet the problem is with us.

originally posted by: Kashai

The problem is not with the internet the problem is with us.

no big brother should stop watching and manipulating domestic civilians, we only need military intelligence from and in foreign countries, from enemies, and when they enter our homeland

a reply to: galien8


So what internal threats?


What about the idea that organized crime could include rape?