The Paradox of Trust - Next Decade Problem in Computing.

Three parallel Advances in computing are making the unsolved(never solved - Universal Tech Debt) problem of Trust difficult and even more important to solve.

The three Advances 1) Homomorphic Encryption - Allows data to be computed by AI and Deep learning without data being revealed/exposed. 2) Quantum computing - would break the encryption used to maintain security/integrity of blockChains or Distributed/centralized Databases. 3) Decentralised computing - No Central Servers (Facebook, google etc gone) but data is distributed across 1000s of orgs/nodes - Bitcoin, Ethereum - Metaverse etc..

The internet was always created P2P (Read - Web 3.0) - But then we moved to Web 1.0 than Web 2.0 and cloud computing and we said there is something called as Client and Server and we build Servers - and so many of them.

Cut 2022, now we are talking about DeFi - and everything blockchain, which again works on Distributed Database with no central Authority(Decentralisation) but many many more Entities which can be trusted by Cryptography.

Public Key Infrastructure(PKI) made it possible for BlockChain and cryptocurrency to use Public/Private Key for creating secured Transaction over Public/Distributed Database and maintain the integrity of transactions.

Web 3.0 (Decentralisation) - relies on blockChain and cryptography, but the cryptography algorithm's themselves are not 100% reliable against the enormous compute which can be availed in Distributed world. Cryptographic algorithm depends on creating Prime Factors of very large number or elliptic curve cryptography both of which are susceptible to an attack with Shor's algorithm - in Post quantum world

Quantum computing, is being reality in next five years, with multiple processors set to launch in 2022, 2023 by IBM and Many others. So Now what happens to our RSA(Prime Factors) and Elliptic curve based cryptography ? They will break in very near Future and of-course there are researches going on for Post quantum cryptography to save the world :-)

The problem which would not be though solved via Post Quantum cryptography is all the data that was secured by Pre Quantum Cryptography would be exposed in next 5 to 15 years(you will be alive to see it). Including all your Whatsapp messages.

But in reality the Post Quantum cryptography - Supersinglular Isogenies or all other listed on NIST site are just trying to make problem harder but not really solve it. Out of 69 proposal on NIST site last 5 years only 15 are not attacked yet.

The underlying problem is, on internet Web 3.0 /Blockchain or Not, we want to share a secret securely without Physically exchanging the secret - But to share it securely there has to be some public information that needs to be used to encrypt (in lieu of physical exchange) - How do we secure that public information??

How do we Trust the network and recipient of the Encrypted data ?

Homomorphic Encryption:-

Image from :- https://theintelligenceofinformation.wordpress.com/2017/03/01/homomorphic-encryption-statistical-machine-learning-and-r-software-package/

Advances in Homomorphic Encryption has made it possible to compute the encrypted data and provide results equivalent to non-encrypted data. Facebook, google and Microsoft are developing techniques to target more Ads without revealing your privacy. But that's not the only use case.

The more interesting use-case is in the areas of research where Billions of genomes can be analysed without identifying the person or billions of transactions can be analysed to identify Fraud signatures without identifying privacy information on those transactions.

Data Models as a Service or AI Models as Service would be an important opportunity, which would allow consumer behaviour(Think: Social Dilemma) driven by few Large techs would be democratised or even would be make possible for Consumer to share only specific information and be in control of what they share.

Again why Homomorphic Encryption is important? - we need Trust - That private information remains Private at the same time solving bigger problems - DNA Sequencing..

Decentralised computing:-

Read:- Blockchain, Bitcoins and Metaverse and More, current information sharing is based on trust on the company to which we our computers are talking to " the green padlock on your browser"(we don't trust them we don't have the option) But what happens when the information is distributed ? we cannot trust all the nodes on which our information resides thus integrity and Decentralised Authentication plays an important role.

The current Solution that we have is Cryptography- blockChain is based on cryptography and cryptography in turn is based on PKI for which don't have 100% secured solution neither now nor in Future, its based on difficulty of decryption.

Again how do we Trust the information on Distributed networks/Databases. Would our current transaction on Blockchain remain intact forever ?

We need Homomorphic Encryption to share the Genome sequence, financial transaction but at the same time we need Quantum computers to analyse trillions of billions data, but quantum computers will break Homomorphic Encryption. Homomorphic encryption is needed for Web 3.0 to share the data.. But Web 3.0 is anti-pattern to Quantum and cloud computing - Quantum computing can only happen in cloud.

The next big problem to solve is for next decade "The Problem of Trust" is PKI the only way to share the Secret ? Its different than earlier advances in computing power.. as now we have lot of financial and privacy data on Clouds, we have trusted PKI without it being 100% - Its tech debt to be solved and has benefits - Web 3.0