“Within a decade, quantum computers could be powerful enough to break the cryptographic security that protects cell phones, bank accounts, email addresses and — yes — bitcoin wallets,” writes CNBC.
But fortunately, that would happen only if we do nothing in the meantime, they’re told by Thorsten Groetker, former Utimaco CTO “and one of the top experts in the field of quantum computing.”
Crypto experts told CNBC they aren’t all that worried about quantum hacking of bitcoin wallets for a couple of different reasons. Castle Island Ventures founding partner Nic Carter pointed out that quantum breaks would be gradual rather than sudden. “We would have plenty of forewarning if quantum computing was reaching the stage of maturity and sophistication at which it started to threaten our core cryptographic primitives,” he said. “It wouldn’t be something that happens overnight.”

There is also the fact that the community knows that it is coming, and researchers are already in the process of building quantum-safe cryptography. “The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) has been working on a new standard for encryption for the future that’s quantum-proof,” said Fred Thiel, CEO of cryptocurrency mining specialist Marathon Digital Holdings. NIST is running that selection process now, picking the best candidates and standardizing them.

“It’s a technical problem, and there’s a technical solution for it,” said Groetker. “There are new and secure algorithms for digital signatures. … You will have years of time to migrate your funds from one account to another.” Groetker said he expects the first standard quantum-safe crypto algorithm by 2024, which is still, as he put it, well before we’d see a quantum computer capable of breaking bitcoin’s cryptography. Once a newly standardized post-quantum secure cryptography is built, Groetker said, the process of mass migration will begin. “Everyone who owns bitcoin or ethereum will transfer [their] funds from the digital identity that is secured with the old type of key, to a new wallet, or new account, that’s secured with a new type of key, which is going to be secure,” he said.

There will still be the problem of users who forget their password or died without sharing their key.

But in those scenarios, CNBC suggests, “an organization could lock down all accounts still using the old type of cryptography and give owners some way to access it.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Why Quantum Computers Won’t End Up Cracking Bitcoin Wallets

The New York Times shares footage from a flying car’s test flight in California — “a single-person aircraft for use in rural areas — essentially a private flying car for the rich — that could start selling this year.” (You can read the text of the article here.)

“It may look like a strange beast, but it will change the way transportation happens,” they’re told by Marcus Leng, the Canadian inventor who designed the aircraft (which he named BlackFly):

BlackFly is what is often called a flying car. Engineers and entrepreneurs like Mr. Leng have spent more than a decade nurturing this new breed of aircraft, electric vehicles that can take off and land without a runway. They believe these vehicles will be cheaper and safer than helicopters, providing practically anyone with the means of speeding above crowded streets. “Our dream is to free the world from traffic,” said Sebastian Thrun, another engineer at the heart of this movement.

That dream, most experts agree, is a long way from reality. But the idea is gathering steam. Dozens of companies are now building these aircraft, and three recently agreed to go public in deals that value them as high as $6 billion. For years, people like Mr. Leng and Mr. Thrun have kept their prototypes hidden from the rest of the world — few people have seen them, much less flown in them — but they are now beginning to lift the curtain…

Others are building larger vehicles they hope to deploy as city air taxis as soon as 2024 — an Uber for the skies. Some are designing vehicles that can fly without a pilot. One of the air taxi companies, Kitty Hawk, is run by Mr. Thrun, the Stanford University computer science professor who founded Google’s self-driving car project. He now says that autonomy will be far more powerful in the air than on the ground, and that it will enter our daily lives much sooner. “You can fly in a straight line and you don’t have the massive weight or the stop-and-go of a car” on the ground, he said…

The next few years will be crucial to the industry as it transitions from what Silicon Valley is known for — building cutting-edge technology — to something much harder: the messy details of actually getting it into the world.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – ‘Dozens’ of Companies are Now Trying to Build Flying Cars

Slashdot reader Charlotte Web writes: The “Group of Seven” (or G7) nations are some of the world’s largest economies — the U.S. and Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, and Italy, and Japan. On Sunday they pledged $2 billion to help developing countries pivot away from fossil fuels and pledged an “overwhelmingly decarbonized” electricity sector by 2030. The New York Times calls these “major steps in what leaders hope will be a global transition to wind, solar and other energy that does not produce planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.”

Politico’s Ryan Heath argues “The language on a ‘green revolution’ is quite strong — there’s plenty of detail missing, but it gives climate campaigners a lot to hit leaders with if they fail to deliver. And it’s a big deal for the G-7 to agree to ‘to conserve or protect at least 30 percent of our land and oceans by 2030.'”

Other reports from Politico’s writers:
“Boris Johnson admitted that the world’s richest economies had not managed to secure a widely advertised 1 billion vaccine doses to send to developing countries. The final communique says the group will deliver 870 million doses over the next year.”

“The G-7 nations called for a ‘timely, transparent, expert-led, and science-based WHO-convened’ investigation into the origins of Covid-19, including in China. WHO’s first crack at an investigation — released in March — called a lab leak ‘extremely unlikely,’ but China didn’t grant access to key documents and Secretary of State Antony Blinken called that investigation ‘highly deficient’ this morning. The U.S. government remains split between two origin theories.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – G7 Nations Promise Decarbonization, 870 Million Covid-19 Vaccines