The Answer to Quantum Security for Cryptocurrency is Here
Recently a group of computer scientists (Aggarwal, Brennen, Lee, Santha & Tomamichel) released a paper titled “Quantum attacks on Bitcoin, and how to protect against them” where they investigate the risk posed by quantum computers to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. They find that the current signature scheme used by virtually all blockchains today “could be completely broken by a quantum computer as early as 2027”. This finding has long been an open secret in the industry but should scare the pants off investors, businesses and governments investing long-term in both public and private blockchain businesses.
In reviewing the current quantum-safe public key signature schemes, Aggarwal and his team developed the following table to compare the different schemes:
It is correctly noted, that for blockchains the key parameters are the signature and public key lengths. Combined these PK + Signature lengths can have significant impact on the speed and scalability of the chain. Additionally, the current security levels provided by the existing frameworks are really not sufficient to protect against quantum attacks for 50 or 100 years after quantum computers are introduced.
We propose an entirely new approach to quantum security on the blockchain. We call it a Reversible Atomic Digital Signature. Unlike the existing schemes, we start with a base signature of 8192 bits, 32 times the size of Bitcoin’s signature. Our ODS8192 is an 8192 bit hash providing 8192 bits of security against collision attacks and using a formulated process goes all the way up to 65536 bits. Additionally, we utilize cryptographic obfuscation and compression to deliver a combined PK + Signature length of just 16 kb.
Here is an example of a Bitcoin standard hash:
Ecb154b227b4952e8b52bbb7037b0058ed53969b4a437fabead7b578895510e3
Here is a Chartercoin standard hash:
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
That’s 2048 characters versus 64. Then using compression and obfuscation our standard hash’s stored transaction space looks like this: 5956076c000
This computes back to the standard hash and is atomic. Obfuscation compression is a method for compressing digital data to reduce the original size through the use of models, obfuscated bitmaps, and an Atomic Digital Signature. The method parses the data and splits it into set length packets for processing. The compressed bitmaps are representative of data locations. An obfuscated digital signature is calculated from the non-repeating data model. Atomicity occurs in regenerating the non-repeating data model and compressed bitmap to the number offset, then combining the digital signature and the offset to produce a result called an Atomic Digital Signature (ADS). At this point the non-repeating data model is discarded and the ADS and compressed bitmap are stored.
We have created multi-length math based model that is fundamentally different from the existing frameworks (lattice, polynomial, etc.) available to the crypto-community today. This is not an incremental advance over the existing technologies but rather an exponential jump in our capability to protect blockchains against quantum computers. Furthermore, our digital signature scheme is secure against attack for the next 1000 years (based on Moore’s law). The implications of this innovation cannot be overstated as this impacts speed, scalability and security in ways that will open up new and different ways to implement blockchain technologies.
In the coming weeks we’ll release a whitepaper with more details on this patent pending signature scheme which is one of multiple groundbreaking innovations that make up the Chartercoin® protocol. In addition, keep an eye out for part 3 of this blog series where we’ll discuss our new consensus protocol that we call Racetrack mining. The Racetrack mining protocol can never be forked and also reflects a step change in how cryptocurrency governance is managed.
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Interview with Tim: “Blockchain & Chartercoin with Timothy Fletcher”, http://techlowdownshow.com/2017/12/03/blockchain-chartercoin-with-timothy-fletcher/
