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1:10

2024 is shaping up to be a huge

1:12

year for the internet, especially because

1:14

NIST, the National Institute of

1:17

Standards and Technology, recently

1:19

announced that new algorithms they've been working

1:21

on to keep the internet secure are

1:24

going to be ready later this year. There's

1:26

no telling just how successful these algorithms are

1:28

going to be, but NIST hopes

1:30

that they'll be able to protect the internet

1:32

for the future. So we wanted

1:34

to share an episode from our reporters, Meredith

1:36

Hadnaught and Brian Resnick, about

1:38

why the internet is so vulnerable to

1:41

breaking in the first place and

1:43

why it's so hard to keep it together.

1:46

Here's Meredith and Brian. Hey,

1:48

Brian. Hey, Meredith. I want you

1:50

to imagine something with me, if you will. Okay.

1:53

All right. So imagine one day you

1:56

wake up. Okay. And the

1:58

internet is broken. Oh,

2:02

so hackers are getting into your bank

2:04

accounts your to your Twitter accounts your

2:06

work emails Instead of

2:08

loading banner ads your

2:10

computer would just like start loading viruses.

2:13

Okay, great So

2:15

they have all of my money my identity.

2:17

Yep. All that

2:19

my secret exactly Is

2:22

this the day I just put down the

2:24

phone and then walk away? Just

2:26

walk away. I'm just gonna walk away.

2:28

Finally fulfill your destiny as a mountain man.

2:31

This is not working life on the internet

2:34

What you just described sounds so

2:36

broken I wouldn't I

2:38

don't know if there's a tech support that

2:41

could fix it, right? So this

2:43

doomsday scenario, this is the

2:45

internet without encryption What

2:48

is encryption? Yes largely

2:51

math. Okay Encryption

2:53

is this cloak that wraps

2:55

your private information And

2:58

so that anybody that's seeing that

3:00

information it just looks like random static.

3:02

It just looks like gibberish And

3:05

so encryption is the thing that's really Protecting

3:08

your private information as it travels

3:10

through the web So

3:13

you don't see my social security

3:15

number you see this cloak of

3:17

gibberish, right? If somebody intercepted that and

3:19

tried to read that information all they

3:21

would see was randomness. So it sounds

3:24

like I Use

3:26

encryption all the time all the time Our

3:31

everyday lives on the internet

3:33

they're built on an elaborate

3:35

and largely invisible system of

3:37

encryption Google says that 95%

3:40

of the traffic that comes through their site is encrypted

3:42

in some way Because there's this

3:45

whole system of certificates and digital

3:47

signatures that are all based on

3:49

encryption that Tell

3:51

you that when you go to

3:54

Amazon that that's actually Amazon.

3:56

Hmm So

3:58

Encryption is just a thought. The heart

4:00

of building trust on the internet.

4:02

So I know the website. I'm

4:04

going to have not been intercepted

4:06

by somebody's life and I can

4:09

send my private information to be

4:11

ball just knowing. It's for their

4:13

eyes only. Exactly exactly So I

4:15

like all this and group Sam

4:17

as you described it to me

4:19

it sounds nice right? I get

4:21

to do a lot of cool

4:23

stuff with that is it is

4:25

it in danger. So that's

4:28

what I would love to tell you about

4:30

until they sell. Okay, How the

4:32

internet was built on encryption and

4:34

how am I come tumbling down.

4:52

When. I started work in cryptography. Almost all

4:54

my colleagues told me I was crazy and

4:57

they were what they were, right? Mighty.

4:59

How Men is A professor at

5:01

Stanford University Have been for got

5:03

over fifty years. Fifty. Years

5:05

ago, computers are these massive

5:08

plastic boxes with these etti

5:10

bitty little screams. And. They

5:12

were getting more and more intertwined for

5:14

their money. A

5:17

Pm were cutting edge technology and

5:19

Nineteen Sixty Nine and Nasdaq, the

5:21

world's first electronic stock market opened

5:23

in Nineteen Seventy One. I remember

5:26

saying I could foresee the day

5:28

when you might buy a loaf

5:30

of bread with an electronic funds

5:32

transfer. A good as a debit cards as we

5:34

didn't have them. It was a

5:37

new age with a new relationship to

5:39

what money was and what it represented.

5:42

Nixon, South America off the gold

5:44

standard in this time to Nineteen

5:46

Seventy One. So many was getting

5:48

more abstract, more electronic. Safe

5:51

set protected physical bills. And

5:54

gold bars where the security of the

5:56

past. We needed a safe

5:58

to protect the information. The money

6:00

That electronic communications that were quickly

6:02

becoming more and more relevant and

6:04

I said what happens if someone?

6:06

maybe they can steal billions of

6:08

dollars, but they just crashed the

6:10

system so nobody knows how. Much when

6:12

he they've gotten their bank account. What are the

6:15

what happens that. And. So I

6:17

saw the need for encryption. Marty. Was

6:19

on a quest to bring digital

6:21

encryption to the masses. Encryption

6:23

that could be used by the public.

6:26

Used commercially to protect electronic

6:28

messages starting to send money

6:30

back. In theory that Marty

6:32

had a problem says at

6:35

this point encryption was dominated

6:37

by the government. Almost

6:39

no one outside the military and really

6:42

knew how it works. Any

6:44

research into the underlying principles

6:46

of encryption. Was automatically

6:49

classified. And considered. A

6:51

potential threat said National Security.

6:54

Agencies like the An Essay

6:56

had top secret inception departments.

6:58

Hoovering up all the best mathematicians in

7:01

the country, But. If he

7:03

wanted to study encryption. Out in the

7:05

open it was a lonely place to be.

7:08

The field was almost nonexistent. Most

7:10

of it was in the classified

7:12

literature. I got information theory conferences

7:14

and still it often be people

7:16

with name tags that said am.

7:19

At. See what was that? Department

7:21

of Defense was an essay and everyone who

7:23

said U.S. government was with the CIA so

7:26

wasn't hard to figure out who was. Might

7:28

his They all warned him off the

7:31

told on the he had no chance

7:33

going up against a juggernaut like the

7:35

an essay friends told. Me: How can

7:37

you have to discover anything that enter say

7:40

doesn't already know They have a decades head

7:42

start and said i don't care what they

7:44

know is not available for commercial use if

7:46

I developed that it is. In.

7:48

Order to bring encryption to the public. Marty.

7:51

Needed to reinvent it basically in

7:53

the light of day. And.

7:55

He needed a team. With if

7:57

he showed up on their doorstep in the fall.

8:00

Nineteen Seventy Four and day he

8:02

was an itinerant. Cryptography is the

8:04

way describes himself. As a tiny

8:06

showed up at Marty Stuart step. This. Guy

8:08

went to see. He. Had

8:10

forged his own pass in Academia.

8:13

And. Not have a good student

8:15

with. Had spent years going

8:18

to universities and libraries and

8:20

Cunningham's laboratories trying to piece

8:22

together any unclassified information that

8:24

he could find on cryptography.

8:27

And he kept hitting the same dead ends

8:29

that Marty was having. Until

8:31

and Nineteen Seventy Four, the head of

8:34

the cryptography lab at a Bm. Told.

8:36

Where is that? I can't tell you

8:38

much. Rudra Secrecy order here, but you

8:40

won't have a look at my friend

8:43

Marty Helmand when you back at Stanford.

8:45

He subsequently we wish he hadn't said

8:47

that because Marty and I became a

8:50

big pain. The sample tourists. Witten.

8:52

Marty hit it off right away. Our.

8:55

Interaction in many ways ran the

8:57

opposite of a normal. Of.

9:00

Students. Graduate student professor relationship

9:02

I'll I describe as your I think

9:04

possibly I'm more imaginative than he has.

9:06

Certainly he's smarter than I am. I

9:09

really liked working with him, but he

9:11

didn't like anyone telling them what to

9:13

do. Mighty, in which

9:15

were totally seduced by cryptography.

9:18

I sometimes joke that there's i'm used to

9:20

sectors abuse of poetry. there's some use of

9:22

cryptography and she whispered meyer she whispered with

9:25

year She probably western lot of other people's

9:27

ears who just wrote it off as a

9:29

crazy dream. And they got

9:31

to works so it haphazardly putting together

9:34

other. Bits and pieces they had gathered from

9:36

them, he says. With

9:40

had been obsessing. For years about

9:42

how to use cryptography to

9:44

communicate remotely in a digital

9:46

world. We. Were moving into a

9:48

world where people would have intimate friendships

9:50

with people they never met in person.

9:54

And that cryptography was the only thing that

9:56

would give you any sort of privacy. Into

9:58

with this person. To clear

10:01

problems. I. Had these two problems

10:03

in the back of my mind. Your

10:06

one for ten years and one for five. Have

10:09

a hot back burner. So.

10:11

Imagine that you and I on it's

10:14

prize at least share information without ever

10:16

meeting in person and. We.

10:18

Said set up a safe for us to

10:20

that letters and and no one else could

10:22

read them. Those letters they would be private.

10:25

But. We both need sees to open

10:28

the safe door and we couldn't

10:30

share those keys without exchanging them

10:32

in person. This. Was

10:34

Whips first problem. How do you

10:36

share a secret? See? Remotely.

10:40

And if were just enough, send

10:42

him he's around. Had you make

10:44

sure that you're sending them to

10:46

the right person without ever meeting

10:48

them in person. Verifying.

10:51

Identities remotely. This. Was

10:53

with second problem. And. I

10:55

was trying to combine those two problems.

10:58

And. At some point. I

11:01

realized. That. That must be

11:03

possible. One

11:06

afternoon, and nineteen seventy six

11:08

witless noodling on these problems.

11:10

And he had a breakthrough. I. Understood

11:12

I had discovered something important. And

11:16

I went downstairs get myself with

11:18

Coca Cola and almost forgot it.

11:20

And on walking down the stairs I

11:23

fortunately remembers it again. and then a

11:25

walk down hill. To. Marti's house

11:27

to explain it to him. So.

11:30

Clinton, Back to that problem of you and I.

11:32

Train a share messages without ever

11:34

meeting in person. Lives idea was

11:36

something like. What? Has to face

11:39

had a mere thought and at. That

11:41

way you did some by any time

11:43

and drop off your letters in the

11:45

second set. you wouldn't need seas and

11:48

then I to come. By later open

11:50

the safe had my. Keys and read

11:52

your letters so encrypting putting

11:54

them information in the safe

11:57

is a different steps and

11:59

decrypting. taking the information out. Which

12:02

idea was to split the encryption

12:04

and the decryption? This

12:08

also solves the second problem of

12:10

identity because you know that that's

12:12

my safe and my mail slot.

12:15

I'm the only one with the keys to the safe and

12:18

so I'm the only one that can open

12:20

the door and take the information out. Having

12:23

the keys is a way of proving

12:25

my identity. Of

12:28

course you'd need your own safe and your

12:30

own mail slot where I could come by

12:32

anytime and drop off letters for you. But

12:35

then we would have a secure way

12:37

to exchange information. The

12:40

bottom line is if we both have safes

12:42

and we both have our own protected

12:45

personal keys we can trust

12:47

that we're talking to each other and

12:49

trust that we're talking privately without

12:52

ever having to meet in person. It

12:58

was a stunningly elegant idea. Something

13:01

they called public key cryptography.

13:03

Whit had come up with the idea of

13:06

public key cryptography but no way to do

13:08

it. Now Marty and Whit had

13:10

to figure out how to build these safes.

13:13

The trick was of course they couldn't build them

13:16

out of iron and steel they needed to build

13:18

them out of math. In

13:20

cryptography the safe isn't a physical

13:22

object. It's like a mathematical

13:25

cloak covering up

13:27

private information with random static.

13:30

Transforming understandable

13:32

and usable information into

13:36

incomprehensible useless

13:39

garbage. But it isn't just

13:41

about locking up information under

13:43

random static. You also

13:45

have to be able to easily unlock

13:47

that randomness with the key and

13:50

turn it back into readable

13:52

usable information. Marty

13:55

and Whit wanted to find the simplest

13:57

system that could fit that pattern and

14:00

They looked into a type of math

14:02

problem called One Way. Functions. One.

14:07

Way functions are math problems that.

14:10

Are designed to be easy to solve but take

14:12

a lot. Of time and energy

14:14

to reverse like. A

14:16

seven. Times. Thirteen I

14:18

could do seventy Two Hundred Ninety

14:20

Six Ninety One. I. Could do that my head

14:22

in a few seconds. But as you gave

14:25

me ninety one and asked me to

14:27

factored into to primes it takes longer

14:29

so multiplying as easy and that during

14:31

is hard. But if you

14:33

have one of the factors already, Than

14:35

you can easily get the other one so

14:38

that's the secret key, but not every one

14:40

way function can be made into a cryptographic

14:42

systems. Nano one way functions

14:44

are good at meeting encryption is,

14:46

but all inscriptions have a one

14:48

way function at their heart. And

14:51

for this also works these one. Way

14:54

functions need to be super hard to

14:56

solve without a key. So

14:58

tough that it's it's not even worth a

15:00

hacker's time to turn a. One.

15:06

Night it was probably one am. Mighty

15:08

was at his desk. For. The

15:10

pencil and paper wracking his brain, trying to

15:12

figure out a way. To bring with idea

15:14

of public key cryptography the life. I

15:17

was playing and I tried or new permutation

15:19

on what secret what's public was private and

15:21

all the sudden it came out. After

15:23

a few months of work, Marty and

15:26

with published their findings. They.

15:28

Put together everything that they had been thinking

15:30

about, The safe, the public

15:32

key cryptography, the one way

15:34

functions. Who. The first

15:37

line of they wrote. We. Stand today

15:39

on the brink of a revolution

15:41

in cryptography. And. Was

15:43

probably with. That's. That sounds more

15:45

like within me. The. With will with

15:47

is not. Above. Grandstanding.

15:50

And he's often right. I've

15:52

got that was right. For.

15:55

The first time in history there was

15:57

research that could make encryption available on

15:59

a. Marshall scale. And.

16:02

The Open Research. Community was thrilled.

16:04

For. enter say had a whole

16:06

nother reaction. The. An essay Was

16:09

not happy that they had lost their

16:11

monopoly on cryptography. There was actually a

16:13

fight and as a loosely speaking maybe

16:15

more than lucy speaking wanted to throw

16:17

me in jail. Marty and Widths

16:19

work threatened the whole way that the

16:21

an Essay did business. Of

16:23

all this cryptography research without my

16:26

open. Than. More foreign

16:28

governments can encrypt their information.

16:30

And. That made the and essays job

16:33

much harder or was telling. Foreign.

16:35

Entities How to protect their secrets are trying to

16:37

tell American Entities how to protect their is that

16:40

there's no way to do one without the other.

16:42

In. An essay Employee. Wrote a letter

16:44

to the journal that publish their work.

16:47

And accuse them of breaking the law. Specifically.

16:50

The international traffic and I'm

16:52

circulations. It's against the

16:55

law, obviously to export a jet fighter

16:57

plane, right? without it export license. It's

16:59

also. Against the law to exports the plants

17:01

that are makes a fighter. Because.

17:04

That can be used to make

17:06

it and the I tar the

17:08

international traffic an orange regulations to

17:10

find anything cryptographic as an employment

17:12

of war. And so by

17:15

publishing in international. Journals. How

17:17

to design good cryptographic systems. We

17:19

were right. We were exporting technical

17:21

specification odds on Implements of War

17:23

without an export license. Marty.

17:26

Immediately brought this accusation to the

17:28

General Counsel. At Stanford University.

17:31

Is. Unconstitutional because it was be violation

17:33

of freedom of the press and freedom

17:35

of speech. That was his legal opinions.

17:37

But he also warned me and I'll

17:40

never forget this. If I was prosecuted,

17:42

Sanford would defend me. but if I

17:44

was. Found. Guilty and all appeals were

17:46

exhausted. They couldn't go to jail for me. We're

17:49

in. Marty continues. There's bite

17:51

from robust, accessible encryption. And.

17:54

Mighty came to see himself as

17:56

a security officer for the public.

17:58

No one was representing. the public and

18:00

the public needed protecting and the group that you'd

18:02

expect to protect them, the part of the government

18:05

that should be doing that, wasn't doing it. So

18:07

I realized that's the role I

18:09

had assumed. The reaction from the

18:12

NSA sparked a nationwide debate about

18:14

the government threat to open publication

18:16

and who had the right to access

18:18

tools of privacy. Articles

18:20

came out in Science and the New York

18:22

Times. The media was all on our

18:25

side. I mean, the Times, for example, because this is freedom

18:27

of the press. And remember, it was right after Watergate. My

18:30

wife was really happy when this became big

18:32

news because she said up to that point,

18:34

if something happened to me, nobody would

18:36

really know what had happened. Whereas now, if

18:39

you're a public figure and suddenly you have

18:41

an accident, there would be questions, hopefully. Remember,

18:44

I'm also pissing off not just NSA,

18:46

but their foreign equivalents. And

18:48

I had other friends worked in the community who told

18:51

me that, yes, my life was in danger. So who

18:53

knows? People told me to watch

18:55

my ass. I never worried about

18:57

it. Various people have told me

19:00

NSA threatened them and things like that. It

19:02

was never more than rude to me. Eventually,

19:05

the NSA backed off. They

19:07

never pressed charges against Marty and Witt.

19:10

And over the years, the NSA

19:13

stopped trying to classify all cryptographic

19:15

research. They came to agree

19:17

with Marty and Witt and saw

19:19

that everyone could benefit from encryption. And

19:23

secrets of great commercial importance, they

19:26

also have national security importance. Instead

19:28

of classifying all cryptography research from

19:30

the start, Witt told

19:32

me that the NSA began to

19:35

scout talent from early drafts of

19:37

scientific journals. So they

19:39

were very good at observing

19:41

papers and approaching people

19:43

informally and saying some

19:46

combination of, would you

19:48

please not publish this? And maybe you'd like to

19:50

get a clearance and come to some of our

19:52

meetings. We work on interesting problems. And

19:55

today, nearly 50 years

19:57

later, public key encryption is

19:59

a... Fundamental building blocks of

20:01

the Internet. And of our

20:03

daily lives. The. How many of

20:06

you have. Surf. The Internet? Haven't

20:08

have you bought something with a credit card

20:10

on the Internet? How many of you do

20:12

are trying to baggins you using photography. Used

20:14

to realize it's because is integrated, automatic and

20:16

transparent which is wage should be. So they

20:18

were well over the brink. Where we don't

20:21

We know of the said on the brink

20:23

of revolution Cryptography It's happened. When.

20:27

And Marty They saw a vision

20:29

of a future. That they helped

20:31

create. And all

20:34

that an that we use

20:36

every day. It depends on

20:38

those one way functions, those

20:40

mathematical lox. The.

20:42

Problem is math is always.

20:44

Changing and evolving. Today,

20:47

multiplying large prime numbers may be

20:50

a good. One way function. It's

20:52

easy to solve that takes lots of. Time

20:54

and effort to reverse without. But

20:58

tomorrow tomorrow somebody might big

21:01

route. Of. A new way to

21:03

factor numbers. A new way

21:05

that much much more efficient.

21:07

and then the asymmetry. It

21:09

disappears and is easy to

21:11

get into without the. After

21:15

the break is it possible

21:17

said future proof encryption. And

21:20

how answering that question might break

21:22

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marathon at everywomensmarathon.com. What

24:23

encryption does Tesla use? You're

24:25

Meredith, I'm Brian. Because

24:45

of encryption, I know you are

24:47

you because we're on an encrypted

24:50

channel. And

24:53

there's not just some, you know,

24:55

kind of deep fake man

24:57

in the middle giving me fake Meredith.

25:00

This has all been an elaborate ruse. So

25:03

we've like built up this pretty secure

25:05

internet. Like, I feel pretty good on

25:07

the internet. I don't think about it.

25:10

I see like the little lock icon in

25:12

my web browser and I know this is

25:15

encrypted. So

25:17

is this the internet we might have

25:19

forever? Are we

25:21

cool? So the one

25:24

way functions at the heart of the internet

25:26

security today like are hard to break.

25:30

But that's really subject to changing

25:32

technology. Oh, so these so

25:34

the simple question here is these

25:36

one way functions kind of math problems,

25:39

easy to do hard to reverse. These

25:42

are our locks on the internet. These locks

25:44

can be picked. Is that what you're saying?

25:47

Oh, definitely. One example that

25:49

comes to mind is there's a really

25:51

common one way function based on multiplication

25:53

and factoring and the

25:56

invention of quantum computers, which

25:58

are on the horizon. eyes

26:00

and a twinkle in a lot of researchers'

26:02

eyes, the way that

26:04

those computers are built would actually make

26:07

factoring as a one-way function

26:09

totally obsolete. And

26:12

so there's a lot of work and

26:14

research in cryptography right now looking

26:16

into these one-way functions and making

26:18

them, quote unquote, quantum safe. It's

26:21

a little bit like an upgrade to your

26:23

security system on your operating system on the

26:25

computer. Like, people are seeing

26:28

new technologies, new types of computing

26:30

power on the horizon and

26:32

trying to add patches or

26:34

figure out what we would need to

26:36

change in order to keep that safe. Yeah.

26:40

There's a bit of a cat and mouse thing here.

26:42

You see new tech coming. You try to beef

26:45

up the locks, but then, you know, I'm

26:47

sure new, even new new tech can come

26:50

and then beef up and then we'll need even new

26:52

locks. Yeah. That's an example

26:54

of a threat that people can see coming.

26:58

But what if there's a threat that you can't?

27:00

Okay. So can all locks be

27:03

broken? Is it possible to not

27:05

do this cat and mouse game of seeing

27:07

new tech and building a new lock? Yeah.

27:11

So that's the main question that's been

27:13

motivating the cryptographer Rafael Pass. My

27:15

name is Rafael Pass. I'm a

27:17

professor of computer science. He

27:20

basically believes that, like,

27:22

cryptography is math magic.

27:24

There's a bunch of just beautiful

27:27

and such contradictory concepts

27:29

in cryptography. Things that

27:31

just seem impossible at first and then using

27:35

cryptography, the

27:37

impossible becomes possible. It's like finding

27:39

magic in mathematics, but it's real.

27:41

It's actually true. So

27:44

this math wizard, the

27:47

sorcerer of math, what

27:49

is this question when it comes to these math locks?

27:52

Is there a perfect

27:54

lock? That would be nice.

27:57

So this is very theoretical. This is like

27:59

the perfect. fixed lock as

28:01

a concept. Yeah, before we build it, we

28:03

have to like know if this concept can

28:05

even exist. Exactly, exactly. So the

28:08

way that Raphael puts this is

28:10

like, does a true one way

28:12

function cannot exist. So

28:15

right now we've been like talking about one

28:17

way functions is like easy to solve, but

28:19

hard to reverse. But that

28:21

hard is a moving target. It's subjective to

28:24

the technology and the knowledge that we have.

28:27

But what if there was a true

28:29

one way function that was easy

28:31

to solve, but impossible to reverse. And

28:34

then I can buy things on the

28:36

internet forever and that's it.

28:39

That's what I want. Yeah. No

28:41

matter what fancy quantum computers are

28:43

coming down the road, this would

28:46

be mathematically impossible to reverse. So

28:49

how does he figure out if

28:51

this type of lock even can

28:53

exist? Like how does he even

28:55

figure out if it's even

28:57

possible? Right. So he's looking

28:59

for a unifying theory

29:03

across all one way functions. So

29:05

we try to see whether it exists some

29:08

kind of like mother problem

29:10

or master problem that can

29:12

tell us whether one way functions actually do exist

29:14

or not. Tell me, has

29:16

he, has he figured this out? So a

29:18

few years ago in 2020, I don't

29:20

know. You're

29:22

going to like tell me a whole story. Yeah,

29:25

basically, yes. He found, he found

29:28

maybe not exactly the answer, but

29:30

he found a very,

29:32

very promising lead. So

29:36

a few years ago, Raphael and

29:38

his grad student, Yani, they were

29:40

digging into this unsolved

29:42

problem of computer science. So

29:44

like totally different field than

29:47

cryptography. And they were looking

29:49

at this problem. It's called Comogorov

29:51

complexity. Comogorov

29:54

complexity. Yeah.

29:57

And so this is like a

29:59

famous. unsolved

30:01

problem in computer

30:03

science. A problem that's been studied at

30:07

least since the 1960s. And

30:09

it has to do with the nature of randomness.

30:13

Randomness is so critical in cryptography.

30:15

That's the walls of the safe that

30:17

you're locking the information behind.

30:19

You're transforming usable

30:22

information into gibberish to

30:24

do that. Gibberish is randomness, right? Yeah,

30:26

because we don't have like a physical

30:28

space here. Like our information on the

30:31

internet is cloaked in randomness.

30:34

Instead of seeing my credit card number passing

30:37

through the cyberspace, you

30:39

see some things that just

30:41

look like gibberish. And

30:44

randomness, that gibberish is

30:48

at the heart of this

30:50

complexity problem. Yeah. And

30:52

so basically the problem to solve

30:54

is like, can you write a

30:56

computer program that

30:58

can analyze randomness?

31:02

I think this is a deeply philosophical question. I

31:04

guess we're looking at something in nature and we're

31:06

trying to see, was this just random or is

31:08

there something interesting going on? So

31:11

the solution to this

31:14

complexity problem, it's

31:16

not just like some math problem

31:18

on a chalkboard somewhere where all

31:20

you have to do is like

31:22

beautiful-minded. Oh, x equals 3

31:24

is the answer. Right, exactly. There's not

31:27

like a solution like that. The solution

31:29

to this problem would actually be a

31:31

computer program that could analyze

31:34

the randomness of any given

31:36

information. And that itself is

31:39

a tool. Like if you had the

31:41

tool to really see through randomness and

31:43

see if something was truly random or

31:45

if there was like a signal, some

31:47

information buried in it, like this

31:49

computer program could

31:51

basically see through the safe

31:54

walls of any encryption scheme. Yeah,

31:58

because if our information is protected... by

32:00

randomness and if you can see

32:02

through randomness you can probably fetch out

32:04

that information. Exactly. If

32:07

you solve the complexity problem, what happens? If

32:09

you solve the complexity problem, then

32:14

one-way functions, true one-way functions

32:16

cannot exist. And not

32:19

only that, everything that we've

32:21

built on potential one-way

32:23

functions is instantly

32:25

broken. You've broken all

32:27

candidate one-way functions, all encryption

32:29

schemes, all digital signatures, everything

32:31

can be broken. So

32:38

solving this problem could give

32:40

you the power to break the internet.

32:43

Yeah. It would...

32:46

The way that it's been described to me is

32:49

that it would instantly break all

32:51

encryption. But

32:54

there may not be an

32:56

answer to this complexity problem. It

32:59

might just not be solvable at

33:02

all. We don't know if there's an

33:04

answer. What happens if we

33:06

just can't solve it? So

33:09

if this complexity problem

33:11

is difficult to solve, then

33:13

Raphael claims that he has a

33:16

very clear blueprint of how to

33:18

build the perfect lock, something that's

33:20

provably secure. Okay, so just to

33:22

acknowledge something here. You've

33:24

taken us on a journey, and

33:27

each step of the journey has an

33:29

unanswered question. We

33:31

proceed further into darkness here in

33:34

the story, because it gets a

33:36

little heady here. So first off,

33:38

you have this idea of one-way

33:40

function. We don't know

33:42

if there's a perfect lock out there. The

33:45

answer to the question, is there a perfect

33:48

lock out there, hinges on

33:50

the answer to

33:52

another unanswered question, this

33:54

complexity problem. So

33:56

there's two great big questions here, one leading

33:58

to the other. Exactly. Well,

34:01

Raphael has told us there's a road

34:03

to the answer. Right. And

34:05

if we work really hard on this math problem,

34:08

we might get an answer to the question

34:10

of, is

34:12

there a perfect lock out there? Yeah.

34:17

But this is kind of high stakes, because either

34:19

we might get perfect locks out of this or

34:22

we might realize that all locks will fail. Yes.

34:27

That would mean that communication on the Internet

34:29

would never be able to be secure. That

34:33

would be pretty bad. Do

34:35

you think that's going to happen? I

34:37

don't think so. I hope not. Is

34:40

that worth it? Is that worth pursuing

34:42

this path for that dream of perfection?

34:45

We might find ruin. And

34:47

is that worth it here? I would

34:49

maybe stay away from this complexity problem,

34:52

because I don't want to break the

34:54

Internet. Yeah.

34:57

I mean, I feel like to

34:59

me, this feels very similar to

35:02

nuclear physics. And

35:04

the study of that through the 30s

35:06

and the 40s opened the

35:08

door to weapons of tremendous power, the

35:10

atomic bomb. So that would be the

35:13

path that would lead us to breaking

35:15

all encryption on the Internet. But

35:18

it also gave us really fundamental

35:20

answers about the nature of

35:23

matter in our universe. And

35:26

then led to tremendous tools

35:29

in medicine and agriculture and

35:31

carbon free energy. The

35:34

pursuit of knowledge and the

35:36

pursuit particularly of these very

35:38

fundamental truths, they have powerful

35:40

and dramatic consequences. Yes,

35:43

there could be this world

35:45

of the atomic bomb for

35:48

encryption, but it could also

35:50

lead us to

35:52

a whole new era of

35:55

encryption and lead us to tools

35:57

that we don't even know what they are yet.

36:00

One-way functions are great, they're awesome,

36:02

but they're not everything we want

36:05

from cryptography. We have much lost

36:07

your goals, so it would

36:09

be awesome to also achieve these more

36:11

advanced cryptographic tools using

36:16

some problem like this. But also

36:18

strikes me there's a counterpoint here in

36:20

that, yes, I'm usually extremely optimistic about

36:22

an unanswered question. But here I'm

36:25

realizing that sometimes looking

36:27

into an unanswered question could

36:30

lead you to dangerous things too. Yeah,

36:32

I mean I think when you

36:35

look for fundamental truth, the

36:37

consequences of that are just inherently

36:40

bigger. If you're looking for something

36:42

that connects all locks,

36:45

then if you find a flaw, that's a flaw

36:47

in all locks. It's just

36:49

like a nature of the question. It's

36:51

a little scary. It's a little scary

36:53

for sure. On the other hand, is

36:56

it less scary to live in a world where you

37:00

have reasonable

37:02

security in the locks that

37:04

you have and like reasonable faith that

37:06

they haven't already been broken? Yeah. All

37:09

of these things, all that the cryptography

37:11

that we've been talking about, they're, they're

37:14

tools. They're ways for us

37:16

to share information. They're, are

37:18

ways for us to build

37:20

our lives and our relationships

37:22

on the internet remotely.

37:26

Like we're having this conversation remotely. If

37:29

like the development of the encryption that we

37:31

have today allowed us to do this, then

37:35

what could we use the tools

37:37

of tomorrow to build in the

37:39

future? Like there's also an inherently

37:42

optimistic view. There's still even like for

37:44

now, right? You can still run

37:47

into some shady stuff on the internet.

37:49

People can still steal things. Yeah.

37:52

Yeah. I mean, like crucially, encryption

37:54

is really about that protecting

37:56

information as it travels

37:58

through the internet. But like, there's still

38:00

data breaches all the time. Like once it

38:02

gets to a destination, like who knows how

38:05

your information is getting stored on some like

38:07

company server. Yeah, and it strikes

38:09

me that even if you have a

38:11

perfect lock and perfect encryption, you could

38:13

still give away the password or the

38:15

keys to that, potentially. Yeah, you click

38:18

on some suspicious link and it's like

38:20

10 new bread recipes. And

38:22

they ask for my Apple password. I'm like, sure,

38:25

why not? This

38:31

episode was reported and

38:34

produced by Meredith Hodnot

38:36

with help from Bird Pinkerton. It

38:38

was edited by Catherine Wells and

38:40

Brian Resnick with help from Noam

38:42

Hassenfeld and Gillian Weinberger. Scoring by

38:44

Meredith and Noam. Eh,

38:47

Epheme did a little something something too,

38:49

but you know, mainly Meredith and Noam.

38:51

Mixing and sound design by me, Epheme

38:53

Shapiro, and fabulous music by

38:55

myself, and of course, the guy

38:57

who created the song, me, Epheme

38:59

Shapiro, and fact checking by Zoe

39:01

Mullick. Mandy Nguyen is off to

39:03

adventure in the great north. Christian

39:06

Ayala found his way home. Special

39:09

thanks to Russell Brandom and Erica

39:11

Klarreich. If you want

39:13

to learn more about one-way

39:15

functions and complexity, check out

39:18

Erica's article, Researchers Identify Master

39:20

Problem Underlying All Cryptography in

39:22

Quanta Magazine. If you have

39:24

thoughts about this episode or ideas for the

39:26

show, please email us. We're

39:28

unexplainable at vox.com. We'd

39:31

also love it if you wrote us a review

39:34

or a rating. Unexplainable is part of the Vox

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