Encryption, Mk2, Another place 2060 sucks Options

[BGMFH]

So I've been looking, and in short order I can double encrypt a file or message with two separate PGP keys, making it even less likely to be decrypted.

I'm sorry, but I dont think even Quantum Computing can fix this one.

Why was this lost, other than gamebalance? Specifically, *OTHER THAN GAMEBALANCE*

[mfb]

quantum computing can fix that in a heartbeat. all you have to do is add one more molecule to your processor.

[John Campbell]

I blame William Gibson.

[mfb]

to more directly answer the question, it wasn't dropped at all. you can't really drop something, if you've never picked it up in the first place. the game designers said "okay, encryption makes it impossible to read data unless you decrypt it. here are some rules."

[Crusher Bob]

sigh, sometimes you thinks there's blood in the water, but then your get there ans it's just ketchup.

That's because what most people know about encryption, they saw in 'Hackers' or some equally accurate movie/tv show.

Even explainging some of the concepts to someone who does not have a good math background can be a bit tricky.

Since the writers probably neitehr knew too much about encryption, nor did they want to 'bog the game down with it' they just came up with some rules.

[Moonstone Spider]

Perhaps the very concepts PGP, and all similar encryptions, are based on have no meaning in Shadowrun computer systems. Remember we're talking about a computer network so different from what we're used to the concept of bits and bytes can't even be applied to data, PGP's encryption might be completely incompatible, on the same level as breathing through your ear sockets.

[I Eat Time]

As Crusher Bob said, encryption isn't a widely studied subject for game designers of anything less than something like Cyberpunk.

If you ARE interested in the subject, or just want a good pre-cyberpunk cypherpunk book, read Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. Interesting for history buffs, mathematicians, and cyberpunkers alike.

[Dashifen]

[Arethusa]

I'm sorry, but there really is no legitimate rationale for this other than game balance. You can go off about how SR's computers don't function the same way since they were designed from scratch after '29, but the fact remains that it's really nonsensical and was built out of game balance and sheer ignorance. That's just how it is. No one has ever claimed that the Shadowrun computer rules are realistic without at least two pints of tequila in him.

[Moonwolf]

Higher ratings of encryption probably double encrypt the data, if it's that good. That's why they're high rating.

[Kagetenshi]

[I Eat Time]

[Arethusa]

Quantum computing's only an exception because, in theory, it's faster by more orders of magnitude than most people can comprehend, and would therefore make all present day encryption obsolete by sheer brute force.

[Kagetenshi]

More accurately, it can test all possibilities simultaneously instead of sequentially.

~J

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Oddfellow]

I actually was part of a quantum computing group in grad school. Without getting technical, Kage is right in pointing out that quantum computing isn't just a fast version of a regular computer, it is fundamentally different. A quantum computer can perform operations that can't be done on a Turing machine. The basic difference is that bits which can be either 0 or 1 are replaced by qubits, which can be superpositions of 0 and 1 (Think of scrodinger cats which are in a superposition of dead and alive, or, less exotically, electrons whic can be in a superposition of spin up and spin down).

Anyway, the end result is that a quantum computer can chew through public key encryption in an amount of time related to (size of key)^some power as opposed to a classical computer which woud go like 2^( size of key). The moral of the story is that double encrypting would require longer time for a q-computer to crack, but nothing like the exponetially greater time that a classical computer would take.

So, all currently know classical encryption schemes would be hosed once you can make sizable quantum processors (The current state of the art is only 2 or 3 qubits!!!). Of course, there are quantum encryption schemes that can beat quantum computers, but thats is another story.

Whether the game designers knew/cared about all this is beyond me, but there are logical reasons for beleiving that classical encryption will be very much breakable in a quantum computing age.



For trustworthy info on this stuff, I suggent the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) sight. http://qubit.nist.gov/

And here's a plug for som of my old friends in the field http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dpd5/demillegroup.htm

[Crusher Bob]

For those of you not to sure about the difference between 2^X and X^2 algorythims. Trying to solve the first once, for non-trivial values of X, the universe will either die of heat death first, or callapse into a singularity. For X^2 you can come back next week and get your answer.

Expect a big rise in the use of 'user friendly' one time pad systems...

You can probably also 'defeat' quantum decryption for a while by using spread spectrum techniques, but I wouldn't bet too much against.

[Oddfellow]

Thats a good way to put the difference CB.

In principle, quantum encryption is unbreakable by any known classical or quantum algorithm. Los Alamos national lab has a working quantum encryption system, and some private companys are working on consumer models. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is up for debate :)

[Kagetenshi]

Not only is quantum encryption unbreakable, it's also impossible to nondestructively attempt to crack it. As a result, any attempts to monkey with it will be noticed.

~J

[Oddfellow]

Very true Kage...ah, what nerds we are!

Kage? Did I hear you from boston? I'm looking for local shadowrun people. Drop me an email: fenselau@bc.edu

[Kagetenshi]

Dropped.

~J

[A Clockwork Lime]

A few things...

1) Nothing is impossible and nothing is unbreakable. One-time pads come close, but logistics get in the way (and if you can obtain a key, it's not unbreakable since you just broke the code). One-time pads are also next to useless on any major scale, especially for civilian use, since the amount of data you want to encrypt has to have an equal amount of coding to go along with it -- coding you can't transmit with the file, thus you must already have it in your possession. It has its uses for deep-cover spies receiving limited-sized messages, but that's about it. And even then, it's not unbreakable as someone can always find the key and make a copy of it in order to monitor their communications without them knowing.

2) Again, nothing is impossible and nothing is unbreakable. Sure, quantum encryption seems unbreakable by our current understanding of physics, but then again faster-than-light travel and spooky action over long distances seems impossible by our current understanding of physics, too. "Impossible" usually translates to "no one's figured it out yet" or "it hasn't been done yet."

3) Some of you are acting like quantum encryption or quantum computing is a reality. It's not, it's just a theory. Nothing in the game world suggests its possible yet, either (and even magic can't perform teleportation or most other amazing feats of quantum theory). It's little more than a theoretical pipe dream that might work someday if several theories end up being fact and we can figure out how to do it. That's a lot to ask even for 60 years of advancement. Even more so if you accept the huge amounts of information lost in the Crash of '29.

In other words, it sounds good on paper but that's about as far as it goes.

Besides, if encryption in the game was impossible to break, it'd make for some pretty dull and/or tedious gaming.

[Oddfellow]

I'd like to respond to some of those points. First, I'm pretty sure I said that quantum encryption can be broken by an KNOWN classical or quantum algorithms. Of course there could be some unknown physics that beats quantum encryption. However, it is based on some of the best understood and experimentally tested aspects of quantum theory, so the new physics would have to be really weird and unexpected.

Quantum Cryptography is not a theory. Its a reality which has been implemented in several labs. I personally have seen several fully working quantum encryption set ups (Los Alamos has a few, NIST Maryland has one, and at least one priviately owned firm in Boston is working on moving from prototype to production models.

Quantum computers are much farther behind. As I said, the most advanced computer has only 3 quibits. However, dozens of research groups are currently working on quantum computers (Some of the leaders are at NIST Colorado, Yale, MIT, along with Germany and Italy). The government is tossing millions and millions of dollars into these efforts. Its actually kind of a joke in experimental physics that you have to figure out some far fetched way to tie your research into quantum information in order to get funding.

Now, it is definitely possible that all of this will fail miserably, and it will turn out that quantum computers are totally impractical to build. And I don't know of any cannon mention of QC. But QC's aren't purely theoretical objects like wormholes...there are real people in the basements of Universities all over the world actually trying to build these things.

[Zazen]

[A Clockwork Lime]

If you steal or otherwise duplicate a guard's key/retinal pattern/fingerprint and get past a gate, you just broke through one of their defensive measures. It doesn't matter how you do it, only that it's done. The same is true of encryption. If there's a key and you obtain it -- through either brute force, decryption methods, or simple theft -- you've still unlocked the message.