Simson Garfinkel’s Spooky Cryptographic Motion at a Distance: Reimagining Quantum Entanglement’s Frontiers
Glorious . One instance:
Consider the instance of primary public key cryptography, where both an individual’s private and public keys are generated simultaneously as part of a unified process. Two mathematical concepts, once linked, now inseparable in a dance of calculation and logic.
When setting up a digital machine server on Amazon’s cloud platform, you’re required to input an RSA public key, which serves as the primary authentication mechanism for accessing and managing the virtual machine. Typically, I generate a private/public key pair on my laptop, then upload my public key to Amazon, which integrates it with the server’s administrator account by default. My laptop’s login credentials are securely linked with those of the remote server, allowing me to access it only by authenticating with the same password I use for my laptop. As the administrator of a server has unrestricted access and capabilities, allowing them to compromise sensitive information, inject malicious code onto users’ devices upon visiting its online pages, or execute any other harmful actions they deem desirable; the private key stored on their laptop poses a significant security threat to the server.
It’s challenging to determine the safety of a server because so long as a private key remains stored on my device, that server poses a vulnerability? However, this removal of the key doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the vulnerability is completely eliminated? Through prudent deletion, I’ve successfully mitigated a potential risk to the server’s integrity, thereby boosting its overall security posture. That is true entanglement! It’s unsettling yet reassuring: no changes have been made to the server, yet it’s now more secure.
Learn all of it.
•
Bruce Schneier, a renowned security expert, captures attention with his thought-provoking presence.
