Sunflowers Could Help Fix the World’s Cybersecurity Fiasco

By: | May 25th, 2015

Cybersecurity Fibonacci Numbers

Cybersecurity Fibonacci Numbers (Image Courtesy of math.Arizona.edu)

Major headlines last week have people worried again.

First, the FBI has reported and confirmed that a computer expert briefly took control of a jet airplane and steered it sideways for a few moments. In another headline, hackers are now draining bank accounts of people using the Starbucks app. Finally, it was reported that Anonymous hacked into the World Trade Organization and leaked personal data on thousands of officials. IndustryTap has reported again and again over the past two years on the escalating number and severity of security breaches at major retailers, banks and major corporations worldwide.

The only thing holding the flood gates back to total economic calamity is public key cryptography and digital signatures. The simple difference between quantum computing and today’s standard computing is that quantum computers will be able to run computing processes simultaneously, replacing today’s computers which can only process one thing at a time. These simultaneous processes will create “quantum entanglement,” foiling hackers.

Silicon Valley Banking on Dominating Quantum Computing Industry

Over the next two or three decades today’s “wild, wild West” will change as the next generation of high-performance computing begins to make it much more difficult for black hat hackers to do their thing.

Leaders in the computing industry believe that the time for commercial quantum computers has come, and Mike Lazaridis, founder of Blackberry, for example, recently invested $250 million in a new Institute of Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. And this is just a drop in the bucket, as tens of billions are likely to be spent to make cyberspace safer.

Quantum Computing Cryptography Could Fix Cyberspace

Experts believe that quantum computing will revolutionize the computing industry in a myriad of ways, not the least of which will be to vastly improve public key encryption. It is the physics of quantum technology that will make security systems much stronger and less vulnerable.

At the heart of sunflowers are Fibonacci schemes that help define its shape and structure. Researchers at Caltech believe that these Fibonacci schemes could help create fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Earlier this year it was reported that mathematicians at Washington State University have come up with an encryption method that would prevent the use of hacking using quantum computers. The method uses an old cipher called “knapsack” and a paper was published in the Fibonacci Quarterly Journal.

The following is a video explanation of Quantum Computing by Michio Kaku:

References and related content:

David Russell Schilling

David enjoys writing about high technology and its potential to make life better for all who inhabit planet earth.

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