Travelling Salesman Page #4

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Legitimate concerns

that I can address?

Well, we were actually

having a bit of a discussion

About the inclusion

of the addendum.

Sure.

Some of us

were under the impression

That, in fact, documenting

any of the system's applications

Was, uh, I guess

not in the spirit

Of this project's

original intentions.

Sure. I asked Jim

to include the supplement

Because I was asked

by my superiors at the dod

For a brief summary of what

their $1/4 billion investment

Bought them.

You are, after all,

being funded

By the united states taxpayers.

Does that answer your question?

- Well...

- That response... Sorry...

That response

is overwhelmingly inadequate.

Well, I guess I have

to apologize for that.

Okay, well,

let me put it another way.

You have plenty

of mathematicians at the NSA,

Presumably with some

baseline level intelligence.

You had to have known

what this project would mean.

So, um, well,

why do you need it stated

In this document, I guess,

and... And why

Does it only seem to list

The more destructive

ramifications?

- Scapegoats.

- That's absurd.

This endeavor's had nothing

but the strictest security,

And with the exception

of a very, very small group

Of people, no one even knows

of your involvement.

So whatever applications

your system may provide for,

You will always remain

entirely anonymous.

I felt earlier that possibly

including these findings

In our publication

was almost a responsibility,

As mathematicians.

But now, as I sit here,

that logic slowly evaporates,

And I'm left with the idea

that if something terrible

Should ever happen, you'd

conveniently be able to say,

"See?

It wasn't our idea."

Convenience

has nothing to do with it.

Has the increased level

of Chinese hacking attacks

Had anything to do

with your sudden interest

In our system's applications?

I wouldn't really know.

But I assume we all understand,

And I am not afraid to admit,

The new cold war has begun.

A room of the four

smartest men on the planet,

And yet not one of you

has indicated any understanding

Of the world's reality.

Future conflicts

will not be waged

By racing to Jupiter

or splitting atoms

Or building nuclear devices

faster than the other.

No.

This is far more subtle.

It's a penny here,

a penny there.

An unresponsive power grid,

a subverted stock exchange.

The cumulative effect

spirals the world economy,

And when the dust settles,

The world's divvied up,

smaller now,

Like vultures

to a fat, meaty carcass.

Maybe we're still a superpower.

Maybe we're not.

But make no mistake, gentlemen.

The Carthaginians knock

at the gate of America.

You're implying

that ghostnet's becoming

A more significant threat.

Look, obviously I'm not

at liberty to discuss that,

But suffice it to say

the Chinese

Are a constant

source of scrutiny

From our security community.

I think that answers

the question pretty clearly.

- In what way?

- In what way?

Come on, with accelerated

key search and decryption,

The entire world

is at your fingertips.

There is literally nothing

you couldn't see.

Until they encode things

differently

Or develop a different

architecture for coming at us.

But you still have

how many months or years

Of absolute, unguarded access

to anything you'd want.

Financial information,

technical information,

Military data,

coded national secrets.

- It's the equivalent of...

- Billions.

No, quickly in my head,

I'd have to say

Trillions of dollars

worth of information.

- Gentlemen...

- I'm not sure a value

Can really be put on that level

of information.

True, but we can roughly

quantify things here.

Right?

I mean, let's think.

Chinese gdp is around

$3.2 trillion U.S. Dollars.

Any cryptosystem

that uses pspace algorithms,

Which is essentially

their entire infrastructure,

Could easily be accessed.

Well, that may work for a

particular aspect of a network,

Say, a financial institution's

records,

But other systems use

a different crypto algorithm.

- Come on.

- You can't crack it,

Because it's

a different problem.

That's utterly ridiculous.

We're not even talking

cutting-Edge theory here.

Gary Johnson, guys in the '70s

Showed that, fundamentally,

All these complex

mathematical problems...

Knapsack, sat, whatever...

They're all the same problem.

- Solve one, solve all.

- That's what this is.

That's what np-Complete

means.

Modern cryptography

is based on the, I guess,

Now-Outdated reality

that some problems

Are just too computationally

expensive to brute force, right?

They just take too long

to try every answer.

So introduce

the nondeterministic processor

And problems that once

took millions of years to solve,

Solved in minutes.

I appreciate the lecture,

And I do understand

the fundamentals,

But my guys'

theoretical research

Points to the fact

that separate networks,

Separate anything,

requires separate grids

With distinct

computational problems.

Oh, your guys?

Yes, rand.

It all boils down

to the nondeterministic oracle.

With it, with the processor,

All problems in p and np space

Can be computed

in reasonable time.

Key searches, factoring,

discrete logs...

You can break any cryptosystem

in the world

If you have the will

and, I guess,

The software program to do so.

Not even a Chinese

hybrid cryptosystem

Could prevent

or even acknowledge an attack.

Nope.

Anyways, in my opinion,

this works more as a weapon,

I guess, by subtraction

or destruction,

Much in the same way

as a conventional weapon,

As opposed to, say,

some sort of, I don't know,

- Intergovernmental larceny.

- Meaning?

Meaning that it's impractical

to embezzle Chinese money

To, say, fund a federal

education bill, okay?

If you want more money,

just print more.

And at this level,

it'll have little effect

On their economy.

And, if you're somehow

discovered,

You've essentially

declared war on a superpower,

And all you have to show for it

Are a few cleaner schools.

Well, it could be worse.

Really, the only way I see it

Would be to systematically

attack the asset.

Basically, cripple it,

take it out.

I have to say, it's much

easier to discuss application

When it's contextualized

like this.

So say you're about to launch

a cyber-Attack on china,

What would logically

be your first target?

Power plants.

Why would you do that?

Kill the power,

stifle the defensive grid.

The country would be

most vulnerable.

Yeah, but if you cut the power,

Then nothing's connected...

How can you hack

A network that's not online?

No, I think if you want

to use this as a weapon,

First, you crush their

entire communications system.

Basically act

as the country's brain.

You can receive and transmit

anything you like.

Mass hysteria, paranoia.

Almost like

a water-Based toxin.

You could tear the country

apart.

I know china

is a lodestone here,

But I believe

it would be totally naive

To ignore our allies...

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