Hackers Not Gonna Hack says IBM

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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This is a very interesting blog post over at IBM Research. It chronicles what it calls the world's small computer that costs less than 10 cents and will be used in tandem with blockchain technology in order to develop "crypto-anchors" in products that will go to prove the product's authenticity. Also in this post IBM very quickly disucces lattice cryptography that "no computer can crack it, not even future quantum computers."

Check out the video.

Our mission at IBM is to help our clients change the way the world works. There’s no better example of that than IBM Research’s annual “5 in 5” technology predictions. Each year, we showcase some of the biggest breakthroughs coming out of IBM Research’s global labs – five technologies that we believe will fundamentally reshape business and society in the next five years. This innovation is informed by research taking place at IBM Labs, leading edge work taking place with our clients, and trends we see in the tech/business landscape.
 
I like how they're showing overpriced medication as an example of this. God forbid we open our markets like Canada does for ultra cheap medicine.
 
I'm curious how it'll work, because usually the counterfeiters just get a few "good" products and replicate the authenticators (whether it's a flashy foil with a URL + serial, etc.).

Assuming this has a readable address, they'd acquire some addresses and put them in the counterfeit. You now have two+ goods with the same address. The original and a bunch of fakes. Rinse repeat.
 
Spidey329 said:
I'm curious how it'll work, because usually the counterfeiters just get a few "good" products and replicate the authenticators (whether it's a flashy foil with a URL + serial, etc.).
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Because replicating the specific IC with that specific unique ID and data is probably more costly than the profit the counterfeiter generates. The more block chain elements you have in a system, the harder it is to counterfit as well. For example, if every chip of significant importance on a video cad was block chain verified...it would be hard as shit to spoof a video card.

The printer industry was doing something like this in a simple way...but it could always be hacked pretty quick...this would make it much harder. I could see in the future that printers need to be internet connected via your PC/tablet/phone in order to change cartridges.
 
maybe these new devices will be as unhackable as US passports, and no one in border security will actually have the equipment to verify the integrity of said device entering the country
 
They're very confident because IBM is the leader in quantum computing theory.... oh wait...
 
SomeoneElse said:
Someone on the internet just said "Challenge Accepted!!!"....IBM you done started a hacker war on yourself.
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If I created something that was "uncrackable", I'd welcome as many hackers and crackers to try and crack it. I'd set up a whole network for them to go to town on it. Person that is successful can have $10,000,000 or whatever. Make it so valuable and that person would be infamous. If they do crack it, you lose some money and show the holes in your idea so you can fix it. If not, it'd be one hell of a marketing tool. Not even the best hackers in the world could hack it...

If no one tries to hack something, does it make it unpenetrable? No. I could build a paper wall in my back yard and claim 100% security... if there are no attempts to break in, I'm 100% successful.

If I build something and the best people try and get in and none do, then I have something good to sell.
 
I can't watch the video at work, but from the OP, they didn't say it was uncrackable or that some exploit might not be found, rather from a computational side of things a computer will not be able to crack. Which right now is actually the case with lots of stuff we have already, where the weak point is not the encryption, but some fault in the user/key or HW based exploit.
 
BlueFireIce said:
I can't watch the video at work, but from the OP, they didn't say it was uncrackable or that some exploit might not be found, rather from a computational side of things a computer will not be able to crack. Which right now is actually the case with lots of stuff we have already, where the weak point is not the encryption, but some fault in the user/key or HW based exploit.
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A lot of that stuff can't be cracked mathematically. They might find a fault in the algorithm itself or like you said - user/key or hardware.
 
Ur_Mom said:
If I created something that was "uncrackable", I'd welcome as many hackers and crackers to try and crack it. I'd set up a whole network for them to go to town on it. Person that is successful can have $10,000,000 or whatever. Make it so valuable and that person would be infamous. If they do crack it, you lose some money and show the holes in your idea so you can fix it. If not, it'd be one hell of a marketing tool. Not even the best hackers in the world could hack it...

If no one tries to hack something, does it make it unpenetrable? No. I could build a paper wall in my back yard and claim 100% security... if there are no attempts to break in, I'm 100% successful.

If I build something and the best people try and get in and none do, then I have something good to sell.
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I know there was a security company that did something like this, but can't think of the name. It was nowhere near 10m though, it was in the tens of thousands I believe.
 
Ur_Mom said:
If I created something that was "uncrackable", I'd welcome as many hackers and crackers to try and crack it. I'd set up a whole network for them to go to town on it. Person that is successful can have $10,000,000 or whatever. Make it so valuable and that person would be infamous. If they do crack it, you lose some money and show the holes in your idea so you can fix it. If not, it'd be one hell of a marketing tool. Not even the best hackers in the world could hack it...

If no one tries to hack something, does it make it unpenetrable? No. I could build a paper wall in my back yard and claim 100% security... if there are no attempts to break in, I'm 100% successful.

If I build something and the best people try and get in and none do, then I have something good to sell.
Click to expand...
Never underestimate the thought process of a hacker who has nothing but time to figure out an out of the box solution to gain access to something. Security Professionals have said for a very long time now, "its not if but when something with be compromised. So it may be uncrackable now but down the road it can be.
 
Tech will eventually become so intertwined that they will work less on preventing it and more on locating and applying capital punishment.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Never underestimate the thought process of a hacker who has nothing but time to figure out an out of the box solution to gain access to something. Security Professionals have said for a very long time now, "its not if but when something with be compromised. So it may be uncrackable now but down the road it can be.
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It's those out of the box solutions that are the problem. There are a lot of things that are "uncrackable" but still hackable. One way hash. It's hackable as you can use rainbow tables. You're not cracking the algorithm itself. You're using some other method to gain entry.

There may be a super computer that takes a year to make something uncrackable. But, if I were to brute force it (say they used the word 'password' as their password), I wouldn't be cracking it. I'd hack into it, but I didn't crack that cryptographic algorithm. I used other techniques to hack my way into it.

I think that's a completely different thing. Sure, it may be unable to be cracked. Doesn't mean people can't exploit other ways to get in... There are other weaker links. Shitty passwords, uninformed users, etc..
 
Ur_Mom said:
It's those out of the box solutions that are the problem. There are a lot of things that are "uncrackable" but still hackable. One way hash. It's hackable as you can use rainbow tables. You're not cracking the algorithm itself. You're using some other method to gain entry.

There may be a super computer that takes a year to make something uncrackable. But, if I were to brute force it (say they used the word 'password' as their password), I wouldn't be cracking it. I'd hack into it, but I didn't crack that cryptographic algorithm. I used other techniques to hack my way into it.

I think that's a completely different thing. Sure, it may be unable to be cracked. Doesn't mean people can't exploit other ways to get in... There are other weaker links. Shitty passwords, uninformed users, etc..
Click to expand...
I not talking about crack versus hack, Its the idea that things that are "secure" won't remain secure very long because people find ways to circumvent the system and gain access by other means. The weakest link is always exploited.
 
As a few others mentioned there are already unhackable encryption methodes.

Most basic (That I know of) is single pad encryption method. Neither quantum or whatever comes after it can crack that. Loopholes are social engeniering, torture, physical interception of keys, and things like that. But just give someone the encrypted message, and it will never be unencrypted with 100% assertion of accuracy.
 
SomeoneElse said:
I not talking about crack versus hack, Its the idea that things that are "secure" won't remain secure very long because people find ways to circumvent the system and gain access by other means. The weakest link is always exploited.
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Right. But, I don't think that's what IBM is on about.

Even the biggest, baddest crypto can be broken by "password1" for a weak password. That is a common problem with passwords. However, I think IBM is talking more about the breaking the password vs. guessing it.
 
That's an awfully big claim from a company that's been wrong more than once.
Also there seems to be a typo.

" It chronicles what it calls the world's smallest computer that costs less than 10 cents and will be used in tandem with blockchain technology in order to develop "crypto-anchors" in products that will go to prove the product's authenticity."
 
Ur_Mom said:
It's those out of the box solutions that are the problem. There are a lot of things that are "uncrackable" but still hackable. One way hash. It's hackable as you can use rainbow tables. You're not cracking the algorithm itself. You're using some other method to gain entry.

There may be a super computer that takes a year to make something uncrackable. But, if I were to brute force it (say they used the word 'password' as their password), I wouldn't be cracking it. I'd hack into it, but I didn't crack that cryptographic algorithm. I used other techniques to hack my way into it.

I think that's a completely different thing. Sure, it may be unable to be cracked. Doesn't mean people can't exploit other ways to get in... There are other weaker links. Shitty passwords, uninformed users, etc..
Click to expand...


If the password hashes are salted with unique keys, a rainbow table isn't going to do anything.
 
Biznatch said:
If the password hashes are salted with unique keys, a rainbow table isn't going to do anything.
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True. It was just an example of how to bypass something without actually cracking it. Could just guess the password and it would still be considered a 'secure' algorithm. Thing is - the algorithm itself is uncrackable (or the claim is that it is). Other things are not.
 
My super quad-qubit quantum computer laughs at your puny uncrackable algorithms. Or are they going to buy up every future breakthrough so quantum computers will be the last innovation? Or are you just doing one time xor ;)?
 
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