Security Notes: Cyber Oil: The Undefeatable Equalizer

I’m closing my series on quantum computing and payments with an introduction of the underlying vision, pregnant with a bouquet of shining scenarios for a level playing field in cyber territory.

Quantum computers are surprisingly non-deterministic in that they are governed by probability. The lottery they play on runs on what we might call cyber oil—randomness. Much as the 20th Century ran on crude oil, this century runs on cyber oil. It took us a while to realize that crude oil is the source of plastic, asphalt, medicine … and climate change. Similarly, one by one, we learn that cyber oil has a lot to offer for the betterment of society in general and for money and payment in particular.

Randomness is the undefeatable equalizer. How so? Bear with me for this short tale. Mr. Sophisticato and Mr. Innocento come together to play dice. One throws a single die, and the other is to guess the outcome. If the guess is correct, the thrower pays a dollar to the guesser. Then, they switch roles.

Both players bring $1,000 to the game. After ten hours of play, Mr. Sophisticato counts $1,020 in his pocket, and Mr. Innocento counts $980. The next day, Mr. Sophisticato finds only $970 in his wallet, and Mr. Innocento clocks $1,030. So it goes, day after day. This persistent equality annoys Mr. Sophisticato, who laments that his IQ advantage over Mr. Innocento is not coming into play.

So Mr. Sophisticato contrives a scheme. He proposes to Mr. Innocento a slight change in the game. Instead of tossing one die, they will throw two. The guesser will guess the outcome, not from one to six but from two to twelve. Mr. Innocento readily agrees. But then something strange happens. While Mr. Innocento is guessing all over the place, sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes twelve, and so on, Mr. Sophisticato invariably guesses seven.

When the sun sets, Mr. Sophisticato counts $1,850 and Mr. Innocento, $150. A similar gap happens the next day, and the next. Mr. Innocento is at his wit’s end. How did his luck switch on him? Little does he know that math advised Mr. Sophisticato to choose seven every time. There are six dice combinations resulting in seven (1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2, 6+1]) while two and twelve appear only in a single combination.

But then Mr. Innocento has a flashback. Things looked quite different when they played with one die only. He resolutely withdraws his consent to play with two dice, and the game returns to the way it was. And so does the score.

What happened? Randomness denied Mr. Sophisticato his smarts advantage. The players could not play any better than randomness allowed, nor could they play worse than randomness dictated. Randomness cannot be defeated by mathematical wisdom.

The payment-security lesson for us is: Increase the role of randomness, and decrease the role of mathematical sophistication. A smart mathematician will be defeated by a smarter one (who is often a hacker). But a randomness shield works every time it is tried.

A caveat: Randomness delivers only if it is high grade, that is, quantum grade. Fake randomness (which is most of the randomness used for cyber security) is defeatable by smarter math.

What can be done then? Randomness affects every facet of the payment realm, from choice of cipher to network processing, data storage, origination, validation, summation, settlement, legacy payment, digital currency, Internet of Things payment, cross-border payment—down to behavioral solutions. Watch for coming columns.

The first important step is to internalize this unexpected realization that cyber space is run on cyber oil—randomness.

—Gideon Samid, gideon@bitmint.com