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VeraCrypt – Home

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Project Description

VeraCrypt is a free disk encryption software brought to you by IDRIX (https://www.idrix.fr) and that is based on TrueCrypt 7.1a.

Windows / MacOSX / Linux / FreeBSD / Source Downloads

Online Documentation (click here for latest User Guide CHM)

Release Notes / Changelog

Frequently Asked Question

Android & iOS Support

Contributed Resources & Downloads (Tutorials, PPA, ARM, Raspberry Pi...)

Warrant Canary

Contact US

VeraCrypt adds enhanced security to the algorithms used for system and partitions encryption making it immune to new developments in brute-force attacks. VeraCrypt also solves many vulnerabilities and security issues found in TrueCrypt. The following post describes some of the enhancements and corrections done: https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/discussions/569777#PostContent_1313325

As an example, when the system partition is encrypted, TrueCrypt uses PBKDF2-RIPEMD160 with 1000 iterations whereas in VeraCrypt we use 327661. And for standard containers and other partitions, TrueCrypt uses at most 2000 iterations but VeraCrypt uses 655331 for RIPEMD160 and 500000 iterations for SHA-2 and Whirlpool.

This enhanced security adds some delay only to the opening of encrypted partitions without any performance impact to the application use phase. This is acceptable to the legitimate owner but it makes it much harder for an attacker to gain access to the encrypted data.

Starting from version 1.12, it is possible to use custom iterations through the PIM feature, which can be used to increase the encryption security.

Starting from version 1.0f, VeraCrypt can load TrueCrypt volume. It also offers the possibility to convert TrueCrypt containers and non-system partitions to VeraCrypt format.

UPDATE July 9th 2017 : VeraCrypt 1.21 has been released. It fixes many regressions found in version 1.20 and it brings FreeBSD support. All users are urged to update to this new version. Please check therelease notes for the complete list of fixes.

UPDATE June 29th 2017 : VeraCrypt 1.20 has been released. It brings bug fixes, performance enhancements and new features. It is also the first version to include local HTML documentation instead of the usual User Guide PDF. Please check therelease notes for the complete list of changes.

UPDATE October 17th 2016 : VeraCrypt 1.19 has been released. It includes fixes for issues reported by Quarkslab audit that was funded by OSTIF. This release also brings many enhancements and fixes, like Serpent algorithm speedup by a factor of 2.5 and the support of Windows 32-bit for EFI system encryption. Please check therelease notes for the complete list of changes. Download for Windows is here.

UPDATE August 18th 2016 : The Windows installer for VeraCrypt 1.18 has been updated to include drivers signed by Microsoft that allow VeraCrypt to run on Windows 10 Anniversary Edition. Windows Installer version was incremented to 1.18a but there is no changed at VeraCrypt level. Linux and MacOSX installers remain unchanged.

UPDATE August 17th 2016 : VeraCrypt 1.18 has been released. It brings EFI system encryption for Windows (a world first in open source community) and it solves a TrueCrypt vulnerability that allows attacker to detect the presence of hidden volume. This release also brings many enhancements and fixes. Please check therelease notes for the complete list of changes. Download for Windows is here.

As usual, a MacOSX version is available in the Downloads section or by clicking on the following link. It supports MacOSX 10.6 and above and it requires OSXFUSE 2.3 and later(https://osxfuse.github.io/). MacFUSE compatibility layer must checked during OSXFUSE installation. Also a Linux version is available in the Downloads section or by clicking on the following link. The package contains the installation scripts for 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and for GUI and console-only version (choose which script is adapted the best to your machine).

All released files are signed with a PGP key available on the following link : https://www.idrix.fr/VeraCrypt/VeraCrypt_PGP_public_key.asc . It's also available on major key servers with ID=0x54DDD393. Please check that its fingerprint is 993B7D7E8E413809828F0F29EB559C7C54DDD393.

SHA256 and SHA512 sums for all released files are available in the Downloads section.

VeraCrypt on the fly encrypting the system partition :

VeraCrypt creating an encrypted volume :

Changing the GUI language of VeraCrypt

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Former GCHQ boss backs end-to-end encryption – The Register

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Former GCHQ director Robert Hannigan has spoken out against building backdoors into end-to-end encryption (e2) schemes as a means to intercept communications by terrorists and other ne'er do wells.

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd has criticised mobile messaging services such as WhatsApp, that offer end-to-end encryption in the wake of recent terror outages, such as the Westminster Bridge attack, arguing that there should be no place for terrorists to hide.

Hannigan, who led GCHQ between November 2014 and January 2017, struck a different tone in an interview with BBC Radio 4 flagship news programme Today on Monday morning, arguing there's no simple answer on the national security challenges posed by encryption.

"Encryption is overwhelmingly a good thing," Hannigan said. "It keeps us all safe and secure. Throughout the Cold War and up until 15 years ago it was something only governments could do at scale."

The former spy agency boss described the availability of e2e encryption in smartphone apps available to everyone is, broadly, a good thing.

"The challenge for governments is how do you stop the abuse of that encryption by the tiny amount of people who want to do bad things, like terrorists and criminals," Hannigan said.

"You can't un-invent end-to-end encryption you can't legislate it away," he added.

The former head of GCHQ favours co-operation between government agencies and private (tech) companies "to find a way around it" rather than passing laws that oblige tech providers to weaken the encryption of their technology or install backdoors.

"I don't advocate building in backdoors," Hannigan said. "It's not a good idea to weaken security for everybody in order to tackle a minority.

The best solution is to "target the people who are abusing" encryption systems and go after the smartphone or laptops they are using.

"Trying to weaken the system, trying to build in backdoors won't work and is technically difficult," Hannigan reiterated.

e2e schemes are a subset of encryption in general but present a tougher challenge for law enforcement and government because service provides don't hold the private keys needed to decipher data.

Not all encryption works end to end. As well as malware implants on end point devices, encryption schemes can be broken through protocol weakness and implementation flaws.

Hannigan referenced the 1980s Clipper Chip debacle in saying he doesn't think legislation to weaken crypto would work now either. "The Americans tried that in the 1990s under the Clinton Administration and it didn't work. I can't see, particularly since most of these companies are US based, that legislation is the answer."

The co-operation Hanningan advocates with tech firms is more difficult after the revelations from former NSA sysadmin Edward Snowden. This is not just because of pressure from consumers for tech firms to offer technologies more resistant against government snooping but because firms, such as Google, who co-operate with the US government in handing over data under schemes such as PRISM were angered to discover that the NSA was pulling other tricks such as hacking into links between their data centre too.

Telcos, in particular, co-operated with law enforcement agencies across the world in lawful interception schemes for years before smartphones and endpoint devices rather than telecom switches became the necessary focus of surveillance efforts as the result of advances in technology such as the rise of mobile messaging and apps such as WhatsApp, Apple iMessage and Telegram, among others.

The former GCHQ boss - who started off his tenure criticising tech giants for acting as a "command and control" networks of choice for terrorists and criminals back in November 2014 - underwent something of a conversion in attitudes as a spy agency boss.

By March 2016 he was had softened his stance and begun advocating co-operation with tech giants, such as Google and Apple, a line he expanded and updated during his interview on Monday morning, which is well worth a listen.

Hanningan also wants technology firms to get together and apply their "engineering brilliance" to tackle the abuse of the internet as a vehicle for spreading terrorist propaganda and radicalisation. "Legislation is a blunt last resort," he said.

Lastly, in a wide-ranging interview, Hanningan said Russia as a country was responsible for a "disproportionate amount of mayhem in cyberspace" such as attacks on democratic institutions as well as the activities of cyber-criminal groups. He praised the creation of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in improving defences ("the private sector needs to get better") as well as French President Emmanuel Macron's public condemnation as positive moves in combating the problem. Hanningan went on to suggest that sanctions and other measures against Russia over cyber espionage might be necessary to set "red lines" while acknowledging much online malfeasance comes from cybercrime elements.

"There is an overlap of crime and state and a deeply corrupt system that allows crime to flourish. But the Russian state could do a lot to stop that and it can certainly rein in its own activity," Hanningan concluded.

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Former Head Of GCHQ Says Don’t Backdoor End-To-End Encryption, Attack The End Points – Techdirt

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

When he was head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan said some pretty clueless things about the Internet and encryption. For example, in 2014, he accused tech companies of 'facilitating murder', and joined in the general demonization of strong crypto. Last year, he called for technical experts to work more closely with governments to come up with some unspecified way around encryption. Nobody really knew what he meant when he said:

"I am not in favor of banning encryption. Nor am I asking for mandatory back doors. Not everything is a back door, still less a door which can be exploited outside a legal framework."

Now, speaking to the BBC, he has clarified those remarks, and revealed how he thinks governments should be dealing with the issue of end-to-end encryption. As he admits:

"You can't uninvent end-to-end encryption, which is the thing that has particularly annoyed people, and rightly, in recent months. You can't just do away it, you can't legislate it away. The best that you can do with end-to-end encryption is work with the companies in a cooperative way, to find ways around it frankly."

He emphasized that backdoors are not the answer:

"I absolutely don't advocate that. Building in backdoors is a threat to everybody, and it's not a good idea to weaken security for everybody in order to tackle a minority."

So what is the solution? This:

"It's cooperation to target the people who are using it. So obviously the way around encryption is to get to the end point -- a smartphone, or a laptop -- that somebody who is abusing encryption is using. That's the way to do it."

As Techdirt reported earlier this year, this is very much the approach advocated by top security experts Bruce Schneier and Orin Kerr. They published a paper describing ways to circumvent even the strongest encryption. It seems that Hannigan has got the message that methods other than crypto backdoors exist, some of which require cooperation from tech companies, which may or may not be forthcoming. It's a pity that he's no longer head of GCHQ -- he left for "personal reasons" at the beginning of this year. But maybe that has given him a new freedom to speak out against stupid approaches. We just need to hope the UK government still listens to him.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

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Former Head Of GCHQ Says Don't Backdoor End-To-End Encryption, Attack The End Points - Techdirt

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Turnbull handballs encryption problem to tech companies – iTnews

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has put the onus on the technology companies providing end-to-end encryption to work out ways law enforcement can access the communications of criminals and terrorists.

In a speech in London overnight, Turnbull said companies should not be able to build end-to-end encryption tools that meant nobody - including courts and law enforcement - could access the content of communications.

The Australian government - along with its G20 counterparts - is looking at ways it can legally gain access to encrypted messages.

The government has repeatedly denied it is asking for backdoors to be built into encrypted messaging products, however technology companiesand security experts say encrypted communications - for which individual users hold the decryption keys - cannot be accessed without doing so.

Attorney-General George Brandislast month saidthe government would try to secure co-operation from technology companies and internet service providers through an agreed set of protocols, rather than legal requirements.

He also hinted at a potential tweaking of warrant exchanges between Australian and Five Eyes law enforcement to more easily access data in those jurisdictions.

"What we need is to develop, and what well be asking the device makers and the ISPs to agree to, is a series of protocols as to the circumstances in which they will be able to provide voluntary assistance to law enforcement," Brandis said.

"There is also, of course, the capacity which exists now in the United Kingdom and in New Zealand under their legislation for coercive powers, but we dont want to resort to that. We want to engage with the private sector to achieve a set of voluntary solutions."

Turnbull overnight told technology companies "the ball is in your court" when it comes to finding a solution to the problem.

"... just as a locked bank vault or filing cabinet cannot resist a court order to produce a document, why should the owners of encrypted messaging platforms like Whatsapp or Telegram or Signal be able to establish end to end encryption in such a way that nobody, not the owners and not the courts have the ability to find out what is being communicated," Turnbull said.

"[We are saying to Sillicon Valley] youhave created messaging applications which are encrypted end to end, they are being used by terrorists and criminals to hide their murderous plans.

"You must ensure that these dark places can be illuminated by the law so that the freedoms you hold dear will not be stripped away by criminals your technologies have made undetectable."

Turnbull conceded it would be a "difficult conversation" but argued the best defence against terrorists was "good intelligence".

"We have in the last few years disrupted 12 major terrorists plots, including several that would have resulted in large mass casualty attacks," he said.

"How many more can we disrupt if every communication, by every conspirator, is encrypted end to end and cannot be read despite every lawful right, indeed duty, so to do?"

The prime minister reiterated that the government would not pursue backdoors or access to technology companies' source code.

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The DoD Will Finally Encrypt Service Member Emails. Here’s What That Means For You – Task & Purpose

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

In a letter to a watchdog lawmaker last week, the Department of Defense confirmed that it will finally, in 2018, join the 21st century and use a popular basic encryption tool to help make emails to and from .mil addresses more secure. What does that mean for your badass joe.schmuckatelli@centcom.mil account? Lets break it down.

The Defense Information Systems Agency confirmed to Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Senate intelligence committee member, that by next year, the Pentagons .mil email will implement STARTTLS for enhanced email encryption a longstanding application that Wyden has called a basic, widely used, easily-enabled cybersecurity technology.

The move came after years of poking around by the reporters at Vice and some tough talk from Wyden questioning how the militarys 4.5 million-user cloud-based email service had never implemented STARTTLS before.

I cant think of a single technical reason why they wouldnt use it, one former U.S. Special Operations Command IT whiz told Vice. A hacker and former Marine similarly told the outlet: The military should not be sending any email that isnt encrypted, period. Everything should get encrypted, absolutely everything. Theres no excuse.

Vices Motherboard blog has a nice breakdown of STARTTLS, which is whats called an opportunistic encryption app. Basically, when your email server and a recipients email server hook up to exchange info, STARTTLS sets up the exchange on the fly as an encrypted transaction. When your emails are sent out into the world without encryption, opportunistic or otherwise, they are as readable as postcards, per Vice:

When your email provider doesnt support STARTTLS, your email might be encrypted going from your computer to your provider, but it will then travel across the internet in the clear (unless you used end-to-end encryption.) When your email provider, and the email provider of the person youre sending the email to, both support STARTTLS, then the email is protected as it travels across.

Kinda, yeah, but not super-big. STARTTLS has been around since 2002, and Gmail first implemented it in 2004. Vice points out that Google and your other popular private email and social-media sites including Microsoft, Yahoo, Twitter, and Facebook have already integrated STARTTLS. In the wake of the NSA surveillance disclosures by contractor Edward Snowden, Facebook led a very public charge to get more sites to use STARTTLS to keep the feds from looking at your emails.

So theres nothing new here; DoD is simply catching up to a basic encryption technology thats been around for a decade and a half long enough now that the vast majority of emails you send and receive communicate with another STARTTLS-equipped server. It has some weaknesses, and it aint PGP encryption, but its a good start.

Well, you probably already know from experience that no Pentagon-level IT policy changes overnight. But more than that, keeping mail.mil STARTTLS-free has also given the military a lot more freedom to snoop through your emails a freedom DISA was probably reluctant to give up. In a letter to Wyden in April, DISA deputy director Maj. Gen. Sarah Zabel said the agencys software regularly sweeps incoming soldier email for phishing scams, viruses, and the like.

DISA currently rejects over 85% of all DoD email traffic coming from the Internet on a daily basis due to malicious behavior, Zabel wrote. We also inspect for advanced, persistent threats using detection methods developed using national level intelligence. Many of these detection methods would be rendered ineffective if STARTTLS were enabled.

In fact, top civil liberties groups like the ACLU have long called for government agencies to use encryption not just to protect their sensitive info, but to help establish a broad pro-encryption consensus in America: If the government gets to encrypt its data, then why shouldnt free American citizens get the same right? Such a norm might not sit well with government agencies, like the NSA, CIA, and FBI, who rely on signals surveillance to further intelligence and investigative aims.

Beyond that, if the military has to triage its IT systems for info security, its probably going to tackle unclassified email servers last, after focusing on secure and closed systems like SIPRNET, the National Military Command Center, and Link 16 tactical data transmission networks.

Well, that was DISAs initial suggestion: Using STARTTLS could make it harder for the Pentagon to catch and neutralize viruses in your emails. But its decision to migrate everyones mail.mil accounts to a new STARTTLS gateway by July 2018 suggests whatever kinks the application threw in DISAs surveillance have now been worked out.

In the meantime, the service is still adamant that you shouldnt be passing any sensitive info or clicking any weird links in your nonsecure mail.mil account in the first place, so, you know, keep not doing that.

Yeah: Download less porn. Seriously. Even if its virus-free, that much cant be healthy, man.

Also, remember the cardinal rule of opsec:

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Homomorphic Encryption Market Estimated to Reach USD 268.3 Million by 2027 at a CAGR of 7.55% – PR Newswire (press release)

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

The growing usage of smartphones and mobility solution is driving the Homomorphic Encryption Market as mobile cloud computing can be described as an infrastructure where both data storage and data computing happens outside the device. Mobile cloud applications move the computing power and data storage away from mobile phones and into the cloud. Nowadays, due to digital transmission people use smartphones in their daily life for bill payments, shopping and mobile banking among others. Due to this people share their personal information with a third-party forum which raises the concern over privacy of an individual's personal information. Internet users are sharing lot of information with each other through a third-party forum. Hence, security of data becomes an important factor which is boosting the growth of homomorphic encryption market.

The Global Homomorphic Encryption Market is expected to reach USD 268.3 million by the end of 2027 with 7.55% CAGR during forecast period 2017-2027.

Homomorphic Encryption Market-Key Players:

The prominent players in the market of Homomorphic Encryption Market are Gemalto (Netherlands), Oracle Corporation (U.S.), Microsoft (U.S.), IBM Corporation (U.S.), Galois Inc (U.S.), CryptoExperts (France), Netskope (U.S.) among others.

Request a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1144

Regional Analysis:

North American region accounted for the largest market share majorly from the countries U.S. and Canada. Homomorphic Encryption Market is expected to grow at a fast pace in U.S. The reason is attributed to stable growth rate, better medical facilities, increasing consumption, increasing private sector investments, high exports and increasing number of small and medium scale enterprises. In 2016, North America market has been valued at USD 53.56 million in the year 2016 and is projected to grow at CAGR of 8.02% over the forecast period 2017 to 2027.

Europe is growing at a stable rate over the forecast period. The region is attributed to the increasing security concerns, high adoption of homomorphic encryption solutions rapid industrialization among others. Also, the high investment in the cloud based industries is expected to boost the market over the forecast period. Whereas, factors such as lack of up gradation and complexity are stopping the market to grow in the European region. Countries such as U.K and Germany accounted for the largest market share in the European region majorly being a banking hub and high investment in infrastructure.

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Market Research Analysis:

Cloud computing provides better solutions for e-governance and it also offers lot of financial benefits in many aspects. Therefore, the implementation of homomorphic encryption in the government sector is growing due to better storage solutions. Also, electronic governance has become an important tool for the government to provide the services to the citizens in more proficient and transparent manner. The increasing usage of homomorphic encryption in this context help to serve better services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment and more efficient government management. Therefore, increases transparency, increased growth of the nation and cost reductions.

The banking and finance sector across the world is adopting homomorphic encryption. Nowadays, the use of online banking system has been increasing drastically. The various government initiatives such as government schemes and transparency in the payment system majority of the population are motivated to have their own bank accounts. Therefore, these are the reasons which lead to enormous computing and storage requirements in the current banking system. Also, the cloud computing system has offered promising prospects in this scenario. The financial inability of banks to procure and maintain private infrastructure and other factors is leading the existing bankers to switch to cloud computing model for their businesses. Also, the main concern is IT security associated with cloud computing services. The security problem is not only with outsourcing but also from internal resources in the organization.

Browse Related Reports:

Data Encryption Market, by Method (Symmetric, Asymmetric), by Deployment (On Cloud, On Premises), End Users (SMEs, Large Organization), by Application (Government, BFSI, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Automotive, Aerospace & Defense) - Forecast 2016-2022

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/data-encryption-market-1733

Encryption Software Market, by Deployment (Cloud, On-Premise), by Service (Professional Service, Managed Service), by Organization Size (Small & Medium Enterprises, Large Enterprises), by Application (File/ Folder Encryption) - Forecast 2023

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/encryption-software-market-3125

About Market Research Future:

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MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.

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Homomorphic Encryption Market Estimated to Reach USD 268.3 Million by 2027 at a CAGR of 7.55% - PR Newswire (press release)

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Quantum Computers vs Bitcoin How Worried Should We Be? – The Merkle

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

One of the greatestcomputer innovations everyone seems to be eyeing lately is Quantum Computing. In essence, quantum computing exploits quantum mechanics to perform computational tasks far quicker than a traditional computer can. This means that some aspects of Bitcoin could possibly be vulnerable, but how much do we need to worry?

Research and development into quantum computing is accelerating, and the results are both interesting and worrying. Recently MIT scientists built a 5 atom quantum computer which threatens the very foundations of modern computer cryptography. The scientists behind the project are confident that their computer will put todays encryption to shame.

This means that public key encryption which keeps much of Bitcoin secure, could be under threat. If a quantum computer was to be large enough and powerful enough, it could drastically reduce the amount of computational effort needed to discover private keys from public keys. As we all know, the moment private keys are compromised then any coins under control of that key are as good as gone.

Well, surprisingly we do not need to be cashing out our Bitcoin anytime soon. Even this most recent development in quantum computing is a long way away from a computer large enough to threaten public key encryption. However, once quantum computers are large enough to take public keys on, the Bitcoin community will have already developed and implemented a solution to protect coins and the network.

Right now Bitcoin actually has a little bit of quantum resistance built into it. As long as users are changing addresses with every new transaction -which is obviously recommended- then they mitigate the exposure their private keys to being cracked. The speed with which a quantum computer would need to break that key is insane for now as well. It would have to crack the keyup between the time the transaction is signed and when it is packaged into a block. We are a long way from quantum computers working that quickly.

Bitcoin could also implement softfork changes which would update keys to be far more secure and quantum resistant. Currently Lamport signatures are the most favored but do suffer some down sides. They would be incredibly long and have a finite amount of times a transaction can be signed with one key. The latter may help individuals become better with address reuse, but it could be frustrating to some users. Regardless, the likelihood that the Bitcoin community will be able to come up with a solution before the entire network is under attack is pretty high.

There is an interesting opportunity though that such a softfork would create. The original coins held by Satoshi Nakamoto, if unmoved by the time the network was securing itself against quantum computing, would either be threatened or moved. This means that someone could potentially steal Satoshis fortune or force Satoshi to make a move. Either of these things would be huge developments for the Bitcoin community. It would either prove the continued existence of the coins god or show that no one is above being robbed.

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Quantum Computers vs Bitcoin How Worried Should We Be? - The Merkle

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Quantum-computer node uses two different ion species – physicsworld.com

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

A node for quantum computing that uses two different species of ion has been unveiled by Chris Monroe and colleagues at the University of Maryland in the US. The system uses a barium ion to communicate externally via light and a ytterbium ion to store quantum information.

Trapped ions show great promise for use in quantum computers because they can store quantum information for long periods of time and can also be made to interact with photons, which serve as carriers of quantum information. A practical quantum-computing node must be able to do both of these things at the same time, and this is a significant challenge because the ions that are very good at storing information are usually not very good for interacting with photons and vice versa.

One possible solution is to use two different types of ion one for storage and one for communications and transfer quantum information between the two. Now, Monroe's team has done just that. A ytterbium ion was chosen as a memory because it can store quantum information for about 1.5s, which is a very long coherence time in the world of quantum computing. This ion is also attractive because it is insensitive to the light used to manipulate the barium ion, which is located just a few microns away in the ion trap.

In contrast, quantum information can only be stored in the barium atom for about 4ms, but this is long enough to both interact with the outside world via a photon and also transfer quantum information to the neighbouring ytterbium ion.

Quantum communication via light was demonstrated by causing the trapped barium ion to emit a photon and then showing that the ion and photon are entangled. The team also showed that quantum information can be transferred between the barium and ytterbium ions via two processes that involve the coupled motions of the ions in the trap.

Writing in Physical Review Letters, the team says that the process could be further improved and implemented in fabricated chip traps, which could ultimately form the basis of a practical quantum computer.

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Quantum-computer node uses two different ion species - physicsworld.com

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Quantum cheques could be a forgery-free way to move money – New Scientist

July 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Its hard to forge what you cant observe

Equinox Graphics/Getty Images

By Matt Reynolds

A quantum upgrade could make old-fashioned cheques the most secure way to send money. Researchers have proven that quantum computers could in theory create and cash cheques that are nearly impossible to forge.

Quantum computers store information using qubits which, unlike the ones and zeros of classical computing, can exist in two states simultaneously. This is known as quantum superposition.

But its impossible to observe a qubit while its in a superposition it collapses into either a one or zero as soon as you measure it. This is what makes quantum cheques so secure. If anyone intercepted a cheque and had a peek inside, they would only be able to see the qubit in its collapsed state.

The idea of quantum currency has been kicking around for decades, but until last year, very few computer scientists had access to quantum computers to test their theories. Now, researchers using IBMs cloud-based quantum computer have run the numbers.

Although this study is only a proof of concept, quantum technology hasnt got far to go until these systems are workable says Prasanta Panigrahi, who led the study at the Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research in Kolkata. Even existing five-qubit quantum computers like the one used in this experiment could eventually be used to issue and verify quantum cheques, he says. But for now, these kinds of transactions cant be scaled to a wide population and they arent exactly the most convenient way of moving cash.

Say Alice wants to pay Bob using a quantum cheque. She would have to go to the bank, verify her identity and then the bank would issue her with two qubits taken from its central quantum computer. These qubits are inextricably linked to the remaining qubits within the banks central computer a quality known as quantum entanglement. Measuring the state of any one qubit in an entangled system will reveal the state of all qubits within that system. The bank can use this entanglement to verify that its coffers were the origin of a quantum cheque.

Alice can then take her qubits and encode one of them with the amount of money she wants to give to Bob. She then gives this qubit to Bob and he takes it to the bank to cash. The bank verifies that its definitely a qubit from its own system, and that it has been encoded by Alice, and cashes the cheque.

Although you cant forge a quantum cheque, there is one weak point in this system, says Subhayan Roy Moulick, a researcher at the University of Oxford who originally proposed the experimental proof. To encode her qubit, Alice has to access it using a passcode, so if someone stole that passcode and her qubit, they could theoretically tamper with the qubit. But as long as the passcode is memorised or securely locked away the risk of tampering is extremely low, says Moulick.

Then theres the problem of transporting qubits. Some of our current quantum computers need huge cooling systems. It is possible to store qubits at room temperature by using diamonds, but Moulick says that a quantum cheque is more likely to be a laptop-sized black box than something you can slip into your pocket.

Scott Aaronson at the University of Texas suggests applying the concept in a slightly different way. If the bank managed the entire transaction, he says, it would still be ultra secure, but there would be no need for anyone to carry around quantum cheques.

However, the real application is a way off, Aaronson says. At the moment, the qubits in the IBM system only last for microseconds at a time. Ideally, Aaronson says, one would like cheques that can last longer than that before being cashed or deposited.

Besides, in this experimental scenario, the bank gives away two qubits every time it issues a cheque. Even if the bank only issued one cheque a day, it would need hundreds of qubits, and quantum computers of that size are still decades away from becoming reality. The current most powerful quantum computers only have 20 qubits, although Google is on track to build a 49-qubit machine by the end of this year.

Erika Andersson at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK, thinks that the whole idea is unnecessarily complicated. Instead, quantum computers could be put to better use creating secure keys instead of physical cheques, she says. The bank could authenticate transactions using a technique called quantum key generation, where quantum computers are used to generate shared security keys to verify the identity of the parties involved in the transaction. This would cut out the need for anyone to carry qubits around.

And, unlike qubit cheques, quantum keys are already catching on in the real world. The technology was used to help keep the results of the 2007 Swiss election secure while in 2012 the Chinese government used it to help keep the discussions at the 2012 National Congress away from prying eyes.

Read more: Google on track for quantum computer breakthrough by end of 2017

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Quantum cheques could be a forgery-free way to move money - New Scientist

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Cryptocurrency Electricity Requirements Surpasses Annual Energy Consumption of Few Nations – newsBTC

July 9, 2017 | Author: admin

The increasing energy consumption by cryptocurrency mining operations has surpassed the energy requirements of many smaller nations. Read more...

While some continue to praise Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as the beginning of the new world order, there are some who believe that the very digital currencies might spell doom by accelerating global warming. The dissent against Bitcoin and other PoW based cryptocurrencies is fueled by the extent of mining operations. As the mining hardware continues to become more powerful, the mining difficulty rises proportionally to maintain a constant emission of new tokens.

An increase in mining difficulty also means increasing energy requirements. According to reports, the recent rise in Ethereum value has led to an increased interest among the cryptocurrency community members. Many people have taken up Ethereum mining using graphic processors.

The increasing demand for graphics processors has not only caused a scarcity of GPUs in the market. It has, in turn, increased the energy consumption. According to reports, the total energy consumed by the Bitcoin network has risen to 14.54 terawatt hours (TWh) per year. The energy requirement is expected to further grow with the growth of the community.

It puts the total amount of energy required to process each Bitcoin transaction at 163 kWh, equivalent to the amount of energy used by an average household in the United States for five and a half days. A further extrapolation puts the electricity consumption of Bitcoin network to be equivalent to the overall annual energy consumption of Turkmenistan, that ranks 81 in energy consumption ranking on a global scale.

While Bitcoin network takes the first place when it comes to overall energy consumption, Ethereum isnt far behind. According to the report, the total annual electricity requirement for Ethereum mining is equivalent to that of Moldova (with an energy consumption ranking on 120) at 4.69 TWh. Each Ether transaction uses an average of 49 kWh, which is equivalent to one and a half days worth of electricity for an average US household.

The upcoming Bitcoin scalability options and Ethereums impending switch from Proof of Work to Hybrid Proof of Stake algorithm may lead to a significant reduction in the electricity consumption trends.

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Cryptocurrency Electricity Requirements Surpasses Annual Energy Consumption of Few Nations - newsBTC

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