In order to operate with cryptocurrenciesmy digital wallet generates two keys. A private one, which the wallet is responsible for keeping secret and guard so that no one except me can access it. The other key generated is public, it is the one that will identify my accountand it will circulate freely through the Blockchain (it would act in a similar way to a CBU to receive transactions).
If someone can hack my wallet and get my private key, they are going to be stealing my cryptocurrencies.since you will be able to transfer them immediately to your account. The maneuver can be extended to exchanges, As already happened with the massive theft of private keys in February 2014 from MtGox, where hackers stole some 460 million dollars in cryptocurrencies from 24,000 users.
But there is another way to violate my security that until now was not considered, since it demands such a great computational effort that it makes its possibility of realization something illusory. Being able to calculate the private key (the one that gives me ownership of my crypto-assets), from my public key (which circulates freely through the network).
Could this be done?
When an encryption technique is developed, it is not intended to create an impossible mathematical problem to solve. Rather, a mathematical problem is generated that requires a computational capacity of astronomical proportions, in such a way that under current technology it makes no sense to even consider it.
But what if we had a computer with that enormous computing power? This is precisely the threat posed by the so-called “quantum supremacy”.
The term “quantum supremacy” was coined by theoretical physicist John Preskill in 2012 when he discussed how a quantum computer could outperform a classical computer in solving a specific problem.
Its technological development in the last five years did not occur in neutral scientific laboratories, but in the context of the dizzying geopolitical race between the United States and China to position themselves as world leaders in technological development.
In the United States, the technological giants (BigTechs) have been investing huge sums of money to be the first to have these tools.
In 2019, Google announced that it had achieved “quantum supremacy” by solving a problem in 200 seconds, which would have taken the world’s most powerful computer, the Summit, over 10,000 years. Subsequently, IBM, which is also actively working on the development of quantum computers, questioned the accuracy of the results presented by Google.but without denying the supremacy raised by Preskill.
Microsoft, through its Azure platform, currently offers cloud services to interact with quantum simulators and emulators, and IBM recently announced that its Osprey quantum processor will be available for “exploratory technical demos” in the firm’s cloud.
for his part China is not far behind and in 2020 announced the development of the superconductor ‘Zuchongzhi’with a computing capacity greater than the announcement made by Google in 2019. The Chinese government has also been investing large amounts of resources in the development of this technology, which it has already designated as strategic.
What makes quantum processors achieve such computing power?
The smallest unit of measurement that a modern computer has is the bit. It responds to an electrical pulse that can adopt two states: positive or negative. The quantum processor has a minimum unit of measurement called a qubit (quantum bit) that acts at the quantum level, so it can present multiple states at the same time.
This means that as we add more qubits to the quantum processor, its computing power grows exponentially and, as we stated before, it leads us to evaluate the possibility that the quantum computer can break the cryptography used by cryptocurrencies.
The threat that quantum supremacy constitutes for traditional cryptographic methods has led to the fact that the generally used cryptographic algorithms are currently being analyzed to verify whether or not they are “post-quantum”.”, that is, if they are supposed to be resistant to the quantum processor. Some of those that are estimated to be broken by the quantum processor are:
- Rivest, Shamir, Adleman (RSA),
- Diffie–Hellman (Key Exchange),
- Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA),
- and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm [ECDSA].
The latter is the one used by the most common cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum and others) to generate the public and private keys that we mentioned above.
Recently, Vitalik Butterin, co-founder and benchmark of the Ethereum Blockchain, and always attentive to the various challenges of new technologies, unveiled the roadmap of changes and improvements that are planned to be implemented in said Blockchain. This planning contemplates the migration towards post-quantum cryptography algorithms, especially, based on ZKP – Zero Knowledge Proofs.
But The quantum threat is not limited only to the crypto universe, but encompasses a large part of the systems as we know them today. We must not lose sight of the scale of the threat that quantum supremacy could pose.
The first algorithm that we mentioned among those that would not support the attack of the quantum processor, RSA is one of the most used by systems to secure financial transactions, access sensitive information, make payments with credit cards or other digital payment systems, and even to host secure web content. Hence the concern that all the cryptographic infrastructure that we currently use on the web will begin to be revealed, where cryptocurrencies could be considered just a small island.
So far, the quantum computers that are being built are specific and are in the development phase, managed by large companies or governments. They are not being mass-produced for mass commercialization, so we cannot consider them an immediate widespread threat.
However, and as the BIS points out, we understand that regulators, governments, corporations and scientific and financial institutions, as well as the academic world, in Argentina, should begin to analyze the potential risk (but also the benefits) which will stem from the coming advent of quantum supremacy.
*Daniel Díaz – Information Technology Professor. Rosario National University
*Carlos Weitz- Professor of Cryptoactives and Digital Currencies. Buenos Aires’ University
Source: Ambito
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