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Category: encryption

Hmmm; I guess the government needs to change its mode of operations. I believe that everyone has been saying this for a while now.

Technology companies are moving too fast for governments to keep up, according to a former chief of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Kaigham (Ken) Gabriel was acting director of DARPA and the man behind drone technology and global positioning satellites, as well as the military’s top secret, high-tech operation responsible for inventing the forerunner to the internet, Arpanet.

He believes governments are fighting a losing battle with technologies such as encryption. But, when it comes to the possibility of advanced tech falling into the wrong hands, he doesn’t believe western governments should give up altogether.

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking to take its own swing at an encrypted messaging app.

April 22, 2016.

The Defense Information Systems Agency, like many other federal agencies and the Defense Department as a whole, is bullish on embracing the small, innovative startups popping up in private sector, particularly Silicon Valley. But finding a way to integrate those fast-moving startups into DISA’s rules-encumbered procurement process remains a major hurdle.

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Australia is making great strides in this area as well.

Scientists are racing to deploy foolproof quantum encryption before quantum computers come along that render all our passwords useless.

Passwords work today because the computers we have, while theoretically capable of breaking passwords, would take an impractical amount of time to do so.

“The encryption schemes today are based on factoring and on prime numbers, so if you had a computer that could factor instantly, if it did that today it could break all encryption schemes,” said David Awshalom, an experimental physicist at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Molecular Engineering.

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Scientists from ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia have enabled the longer distance (250 Kilos) of secured data transmission occur via Quantum. Nice; and should be a wake up call to the US as well on advancing their efforts more.

A group of scientists from ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia has developed a novel approach to the construction of quantum communication systems for secure data exchange. The experimental device based on the results of the research is capable of transmitting single-photon quantum signals across distances of 250 kilometers or more, which is on par with other cutting edge analogues. The research paper was published in the Optics Express journal.

Information security is becoming more and more of a critical issue not only for large companies, banks and defense enterprises, but even for small businesses and individual users. However, the data encryption algorithms we currently use for protecting our data are imperfect — in the long-term, their logic can be cracked. Regardless of how complex and intricate the algorithm is, getting round it is just the matter of time.

Contrary to algorithm-based encryption, systems that protect information by making use of the fundamental laws of quantum physics, can make data transmission completely immune to hacker attacks in the future. Information in a quantum channel is carried by single photons that change irreversibly once an eavesdropper attempts to intercept them. Therefore, the legitimate users will instantly know about any kind of intervention.

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Beautiful future lays ahead in QC.

Quantum physics not only explains how matter behaves at the subatomic level, but is also used to create many devices in our everyday lives, from lasers and transistors to GPS and mobile phones. The next wave of innovation could lead to unbreakable encryption and computers that are up to one million times faster. On 6 April, Parliament’s Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) unit organised a workshop to discuss with experts the potential of these new quantum technologies.

Exploiting the quirks of the quantum world

Quantum theory looks at matter at the subatomic level — down to electrons. And that behaviour, compared to our everyday world, is very strange. For example, an electron can be in different places at the same time, a phenomenon known as superposition. Or it can interact with another particle at a large distance thanks to an effect called “entanglement”.

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A new method of implementing an ‘unbreakable’ quantum cryptographic system is able to transmit information at rates more than ten times faster than previous attempts.

Researchers have developed a new method to overcome one of the main issues in implementing a quantum cryptography system, raising the prospect of a useable ‘unbreakable’ method for sending sensitive information hidden inside particles of light.

By ‘seeding’ one inside another, the researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Toshiba Research Europe, have demonstrated that it is possible to distribute encryption keys at rates between two and six orders of magnitude higher than earlier attempts at a real-world quantum cryptography system. The results are reported in the journal Nature Photonics.

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Imagine mastering instruments, learning to tango and becoming fluent in French — in months, weeks, even days. No, it’s not science fiction: A new program by the government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency aims to tweak your nervous system to make you learn better and faster.

The goal of the new DARPA program, called Targeted Neuroplasticity Training, is to stimulate your peripheral nervous system, the network of nerves on the outside of your brain and spinal cord, to facilitate the development of cognitive skills. If it works, TNT could become a faster and cheaper way to train people on foreign languages, intelligence analysis, cryptography and more.

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