On the Heels of a Light Beam – Scientific American

As a 16-year-old boy, Albert Einstein imagined chasing after a beam of light in the vacuum of space. He mused on that vision for years, turning it over in his mind, asking questions about the relation between himself and the beam. Those mental investigations eventually led him to his special theory of relativity. Such thought experiments, which Einstein referred to by the German term gedankenexperiment, continue to nourish the heart of physics today, especially in the field of quantum mechanics, which he helped to establish.

In quantum mechanics, things don't happen, theoretical physicist Stephen L. Adler tells our reporter Tim Folger, referring to the probabilistic nature of quantum reality.

Philosophically, this may be true, but it hasn't stopped researchers from testing quantum concepts. Using lasers to excite electrons into emitting photons, a group at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands ruled out the existence of hidden variables, which Einstein believed were controlling so-called entangled particlesone of the main tenets of quantum theory. Without these mysterious forces, bizarre dynamics could indeed be at work in the quantum world, defying our notions of space and time. Physicist Lee Smolin argues that the fabric of the cosmos is a vast collection of atomic interactions within an evolving network of relations where causality among events is complex and irrespective of distance.

Despite the theoretical mysteries of quantum theory, its real-world applications are growing. Researchers are cooling atomic systems to near absolute zero for use as quantum simulators to study applications in superconductors and superfluids. Others are using tabletop experiments to monitor the gravitational fields around entangled objectsminuscule gold or diamond spheres, for examplelooking for signs that gravity itself is quantized into discrete bits. At a larger scale, tools such as the Event Horizon Telescope, which recently took the first picture of a black hole, and gravitational-wave detectors could help resolve long-standing, vexing contradictions between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

These quantum insights are fueling tremendous innovation. A team of researchers in China successfully tested superposition over a distance of 1,200 kilometers, paving the way for an unhackable quantum-communications network. Computer scientists are using quantum algorithms to enhance traditional systems, ratcheting up progress toward the heralded quantum computing era. Such applications are still immature, as Elizabeth Gibney reports, yet it's not stopping investors from pouring money into quantum start-ups.

Science historians have argued about whether Einstein accepted the elements of quantum theory that conflicted with his own theories. Who knows whether he could have imagined the applications his ideas engendered. In any case, the thought experiment continues.

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On the Heels of a Light Beam - Scientific American

Eleven Princeton faculty elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences – Princeton University

Princeton faculty members Rubn Gallo, M. Zahid Hasan, Amaney Jamal, Ruby Lee, Margaret Martonosi, Tom Muir, Eve Ostriker, Alexander Smits, Leeat Yariv and Muhammad Qasim Zaman have been named members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Visiting faculty member Alondra Nelson also was elected to the academy.

They are among 276 scholars, scientists, artists and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors elected this year in recognition of their contributions to their respective fields.

Gallo is the Walter S. Carpenter, Jr., Professor in Language, Literature, and Civilization of Spain and a professor of Spanish and Portuguese. He joined the Princeton faculty in 2002. His most recent book is Conversacin en Princeton(2017)with Mario Vargas Llosa, who was teaching at Princeton when he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010.

Gallos other books include Prousts LatinAmericans(2014);Freuds Mexico: Into the Wilds of Psychoanalysis(2010); Mexican Modernity: the Avant-Garde and the Technological Revolution(2005); New Tendencies in Mexican Art(2004); andThe Mexico City Reader(2004). He is currently working on Cuba: A New Era, a book about the changes in Cuban culture after the diplomatic thaw with the United States.

Gallo received the Gradiva award for the best book on a psychoanalytic theme and the Modern Language Associations Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for the best book on a Latin American topic. He is a member of the board of the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, where he also serves as research director.

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Nick Barberio, Office of Communications

Hasan is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. He studiesfundamental quantum effects in exotic superconductors, topological insulators and quantum magnetsto make new discoveries about the nature of matter, work that may have future applications in areas such asquantum computing. He joined the faculty in 2002and has since led his research team to publish many influential findings.

Last year, Hasans lab led research that discovered that certain classes of crystals with an asymmetry like biological handedness, known as chiral crystals, may harbor electrons that behave in unexpected ways. In 2015, he led a research team that first observed Weyl fermions, which, if applied to next-generation electronics, could allow for a nearly free and efficient flow of electricity in electronics, and thus greater power, especially for computers.

In 2013, Hasan was named a fellow of the American Physical Society for the experimental discovery of three-dimensional topological insulators a new kind of quantum matter. In 2009, he received a Sloan Research Fellowship for groundbreaking research.

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Jamal is the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics and director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice. She has taught at Princeton since 2003. Her current research focuses on the drivers of political behavior in the Arab world, Muslim immigration to the U.S. and Europe, and the effect of inequality and poverty on political outcomes.

Jamal also directs the Workshop on Arab Political Development and the Bobst-AUB Collaborative Initiative. She is also principal investigator for the Arab Barometer project, which measures public opinion in the Arab world. She is the former President of the Association of Middle East Womens Studies.

Her books include Barriers to Democracy (2007), which won the 2008 APSA Best Book Award in comparative democratization, and Of Empires and Citizens, which was published by Princeton University Press (2012). She is co-editor of Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9/11: From Invisible Citizens to Visible Subjects (2007) and Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit after 9/11 (2009).

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Lee is the Forrest G. Hamrick Professor in Engineering and professor of electrical engineering. She is an associated faculty member in computer science. Lee joined the Princeton faculty in 1998.Her work at Princeton explores how the security and performance of computing systems can be significantly and simultaneously improved by hardware architecture. Her designs of secure processor architectures have strongly influenced industry security offerings and also inspired new generations of academic researchers in hardware security, side-channel attacks and defenses, secure processors and caches, and enhanced cloud computing and smartphone security.

Her research lies at the intersection of computer architecture, cybersecurity and, more recently, the branch of artificial intelligence known as deep learning.

Lee spent 17 years designing computers at Hewlett-Packard, and was a chief architect there before coming to Princeton. Among many achievements, Lee is known in the computer industry for her design of the HP Precision Architecture (HPPA or PA-RISC) that powered HPs commercial and technical computer product families for several decades, and was widely regarded as introducing key forward-looking features. In the '90s she spearheaded the development of microprocessor instructions for accelerating multimedia, which enabled video and audio streaming, leading to ubiquitous digital media.Lee is a fellow into the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Margaret Martonosi, the Hugh Trumbull Adams 35 Professor of Computer Science, specializes in computer architecture and mobile computing with an emphasis on power efficiency. She was one of the architects of the Wattch power modeling infrastructure, a tool that was among the first to allow computer scientists to incorporate power consumption into early-stage computer systems design. Her work helped demonstrate that power needs can help dictate the design of computing systems. More recently, Martonosis work has also focused on architecture and compiler issues in quantum computing.

She currently serves as head of the National Science Foundations Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, one of seven top-level divisions within the NSF. From 2017 until February 2020, she directed Princetons Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, a center focused on enabling students across the University to realize their aspirations for addressing societal problems. She is an inventor who holds seven U.S. patents and has co-authored two technical reference books on power-aware computer architecture. In 2018, she was one of 13 co-authors of a National Academies consensus study report on progress and challenges in quantum computing.

Martonosi is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE). Among other honors, she has received a Jefferson Science Fellowship, the IEEE Technical Achievement Award, and the ACM SIGARCH Alan D. Berenbaum Distinguished Service Award. She joined the Princeton faculty in 1994.

Muir is the Van Zandt Williams, Jr. Class of 65 Professor of Chemistry and chair of the chemistry department. He joined Princeton in 2011 and is also an associated faculty member in molecular biology.

He leads research in investigating the physiochemical basis of protein function in complex systems of biomedical interest. By combining tools of organic chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics and cell biology, his lab has developed a suite of new technologies that provide fundamental insight into how proteins work. The chemistry-driven approaches pioneered by Muirs lab are now widely used by chemical biologists around the world.

Muir has published over 150 scientific articles and has won a number of honors for his research.He received a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health and is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

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Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and a visiting lecturer with the rank of professor in sociology at Princeton. She is president of the Social Science Research Council and is one of the country's foremost thinkers in the fields of science, technology, social inequalityand race. Her groundbreaking books include "The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome" (2016) and "Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination" (2011).Her other books include"Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History" (with Keith Wailoo of Princeton and Catherine Lee) and"Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life" (with Thuy Linh Tu). In 2002 she edited "Afrofuturism," a special issue of Social Text.

Nelson's writings and commentary also have reached the broader public through a variety of outlets. She has contributed to national policy discussions on inequality and the implications of new technology on society.

She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Hastings Centerand the Sociological Research Association. She serves on several advisory boards, including the Andrew. W. Mellon Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Ostriker, professor of astrophysical sciences, studies the universe. Her research is in the area of theoretical and computational astrophysics, and the tools she uses are powerful supercomputers and algorithms capable of simulating the birth, life, death and reincarnation of stars in their galactic homes. Ostriker and her fellow researchers build computer models using fundamental physical laws ones that govern gravity, fluid dynamics and electromagnetic radiation to follow the evolution of conditions found in deep space.

Ostriker, who came to Princeton in 2012, and her team have explored the formation of superbubbles, giant fronts of hot gas that billow out from a cluster of supernova explosions. More recently, she and her colleagues turned their focus toward interstellar clouds.

The research team uses computing resources through the Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering and its TIGER and Perseus research computing clusters, as well as supercomputers administered through NASA. In 2017, Ostriker received a Simons Investigator Award.

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Smits is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Emeritus. His research spans the field of fluid mechanics, including fundamental turbulence, supersonic and hypersonic flows, bio-inspired flows, sports aerodynamics, and novel energy-harvesting concepts.

He joined the Princeton faculty in 1981 and transferred to emeritus status in 2018. Smits served as chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering for 13 years and was director of the Gas Dynamics Laboratory on the Forrestal Campus for 33 years. During that time, he received several teaching awards, including the Presidents Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Smits has written more than 240 articles and three books, and edited seven volumes. He was awarded seven patents and helped found three companies. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society.

Yariv is the Uwe Reinhardt Professor of Economics. An expert in applied theory and experimental economics, her research interests concentrate on game theory, political economy, psychology and economics. She joined the faculty in 2018. Yariv also is director of the Princeton Experimental Laboratory for the Social Sciences.

She is a member of several professional organizations and is lead editor of American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, a research associate with the Political Economy Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a research fellow with the Industrial Organization Programme of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

She is also a fellow of the Econometric Society and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, and has received numerous grants for researchand awards for her many publications.

Zaman, who joined the Princeton faculty in 2006, is the Robert H. Niehaus 77 Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Religion and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

He has written on the relationship between religious and political institutions in medieval and modern Islam, on social and legal thought in the modern Muslim world, on institutions and traditions of learning in Islam, and on the flow of ideas between South Asia and the Arab Middle East. He is the author of Religion and Politics under the Early Abbasids (1997), The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (2002), Ashraf Ali Thanawi: Islam in Modern South Asia (2008), Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism (2012), and Islam in Pakistan: A History (2018). With Robert W. Hefner, he is also the co-editor of Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education (2007); with Roxanne L. Euben, of Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought (2009); and, as associate editor, with Gerhard Bowering et al., of the Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (2013). Among his current projects is a book on South Asia and the wider Muslim world in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In 2017, Zaman received Princetons Graduate Mentoring Award. In 2009, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

The mission of the academy: Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.

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Eleven Princeton faculty elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences - Princeton University

The Economic Impact of Coronavirus on Value of Quantum Computing Market Predicted to Surpass US$ by the of 20702019-2019 – Jewish Life News

Persistence Market Research recently published a market study that sheds light on the growth prospects of the global Quantum Computing market during the forecast period (20XX-20XX). In addition, the report also includes a detailed analysis of the impact of the novel COVID-19 pandemic on the future prospects of the Quantum Computing market. The report provides a thorough evaluation of the latest trends, market drivers, opportunities, and challenges within the global Quantum Computing market to assist our clients arrive at beneficial business decisions.

The recent published research report sheds light on critical aspects of the global Quantum Computing market such as vendor landscape, competitive strategies, market drivers and challenges along with the regional analysis. The report helps the readers to draw a suitable conclusion and clearly understand the current and future scenario and trends of global Quantum Computing market. The research study comes out as a compilation of useful guidelines for players to understand and define their strategies more efficiently in order to keep themselves ahead of their competitors. The report profiles leading companies of the global Quantum Computing market along with the emerging new ventures who are creating an impact on the global market with their latest innovations and technologies.

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The company profile section of the report offers great insights such as market revenue and market share of global Quantum Computing market. Key companies listed in the report are:

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For any queries get in touch with Industry Expert @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.co/ask-an-expert/14758

Some of the Major Highlights of TOC covers in Quantum Computing Market Report:

Chapter 1: Methodology & Scope of Quantum Computing Market

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Chapter 3: Quantum Computing Industry Insights

Chapter 4: Quantum Computing Market, By Region

Chapter 5: Company Profile

And Continue

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The Economic Impact of Coronavirus on Value of Quantum Computing Market Predicted to Surpass US$ by the of 20702019-2019 - Jewish Life News

Zoom’s New App Update Combats ‘Zoombombing’ and Boosts Encryption – Newsweek

Video-conferencing application Zoom is set to receive additional security updates that are designed to increase "resistance against tampering."

The software, which experienced a surge in use during the COVID-19 pandemic as users started working, learning, and socializing from home, attracted criticism for security and privacy bugs, including the meetings that were susceptible to hijacking, a process called "Zoombombing."

Now, the team behind the application says a new version will add support for better encryption and give hosts the ability to report other users through a dedicated security icon.

Meeting passwords are now default and administrators will also have the option of defining password complexity, such as length and special character requirements. The suite of security features, previously scattered in meeting menus, is now grouped together in a dedicated area.

"Hosts can require all participants to register for the meeting, where they enter their first name, last name, email address, and other information, which the host can then confirm. Hosts can also use the security icon to disable the ability for participants to rename themselves," the firm said in a blog post.

Zoom said "report a user" and encryption will be supported in Zoom 5.0, which is releasing within the week. To get the update, visit zoom.com/download or follow the steps within the client.

The changes come as part of a 90-day security plan that was put in place after Zoom CEO Eric Yuan conceded the app had "fallen short of the community's privacy and security expectations."

As of March, Zoom said it was used by roughly 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid. That was up from approximately 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019.

The influx of fresh users brought a new set of problems for the software, which was previously focused towards an enterprise audience. The FBI warned public meetings were being disrupted across the U.S., hijacked in real-time to show pornography, hate images or threatening language.

Governments and businesses, including Google, Nasa and SpaceX, urged their employees to avoid the app as a result of mounting security concerns, and Zoom acknowledged calls were vulnerable. In the U.S., police recently arrested a teenager who allegedly targeted a teacher's meetings.

The Intercept reported Zoom's video and audio meetings were not actually being supported by end-to-end encryption, despite claims that were previously made in its own security policies. The BBC reported today multiple meetings this week were hijacked to show footage of child abuse, with Zoom telling the news outlet that it is investigating the incident. Police are also probing the cases.

Zoom executives say the new version of the app is one step towards better protecting the user base, and confirmed that public meeting IDs, used to join calls, have been made less visible.

"From our network to our feature set to our user experience, everything is being put through rigorous scrutiny," said Oded Gal, chief product officer (CPO) of Zoom. "On the back end, AES 256-bit GCM encryption will raise the bar for securing our users' data in transit. On the front end, I'm most excited about the Security icon in the meeting menu bar.

"This takes our security features, existing and new, and puts them front and center for our meeting hosts. With millions of new users, this will make sure they have instant access to important security controls in their meetings." And talking security, CEO Yuan pledged: "This is just the beginning."

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Zoom's New App Update Combats 'Zoombombing' and Boosts Encryption - Newsweek

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES): What It Is and How It Works – Hashed Out by The SSL Store – Hashed Out by The SSL Store

Understanding advanced encryption standard on basic level doesnt require a higher degree in computer science or Matrix-level consciousness lets break AES encryption down into laymans terms

Hey, all. We know of security of information to be a hot topic since, well, forever. We entrust our personal and sensitive information to lots of major entities and still have problems with data breaches, data leaks, etc. Some of this happens because of security protocols in networking, or bad practices of authentication management but, really, there are many ways that data breaches can occur. However, the actual process of decrypting a ciphertext without a key is far more difficult. For that, we can thank the encrypting algorithms like the popular advanced encryption standard and the secure keys that scramble our data into indecipherable gibberish.

Lets look into how AES works and different applications for it. Well be getting a little into some Matrix-based math so, grab your red pills and see how far this rabbit hole goes.

Lets hash it out.

You may have heard of advanced encryption standard, or AES for short but may not know the answer to the question what is AES? Here are four things you need to know about AES:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) established AES as an encryption standard nearly 20 years ago to replace the aging data encryption standard (DES). After all, AES encryption keys can go up to 256 bits, whereas DES stopped at just 56 bits. NIST could have chosen a cipher that offered greater security, but the tradeoff would have required greater overhead that wouldnt be practical. So, they went with one that had great all-around performance and security.

AESs results are so successful that many entities and agencies have approved it and utilize it for encrypting sensitive information. The National Security Agency (NSA), as well as other governmental bodies, utilize AES encryption and keys to protect classified or other sensitive information. Furthermore, AES is often included in commercial based products, including but limited to:

Although it wouldnt literally take forever, it would take far longer than any of our lifetimes to crack an AES 256-bit encryption key using modern computing technology. This is from a brute force standpoint, as in trying every combination until we hear the click/unlocking sound. Certain protections are put in place to prevent stuff from like this happening quickly, such as a limit on password attempts before a lockdown, which may or may not include a time lapse, to occur before trying again. When we are dealing with computation in milliseconds, waiting 20 minutes to try another five times would seriously add to the time taken to crack a key.

Just how long would it take? We are venturing into a thousand monkeys working on a thousand typewriters to write A Tale of Two Cities territory. The possible combinations for AES 256-bit encryption is 2256. Even if a computer can do multiple quadrillions of instructions per second, then we are still in that eagles-wings-eroding-Mount-Everest time frame.

Needless to say, its waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (theres not enough memory on our computers to support the number of a letters that I want to convey) longer than our current universe has been in existence. And thats just for a 16-byte block of data. So, as you can see, brute forcing AES even if it is 128 bits AES is futile.

That would likely change, though, once quantum computing becomes a little more mainstream, available, and effective. Quantum computing is expected to break AES encryption and require other methods to protect our data but thats still a ways down the road.

Manage Digital Certificates like a Boss

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To better understand what AES is, you need to understand how it works. But in order to see how the advanced encryption standard actually works, however, we first need to look at how this is set up and the rules concerning the process based on the users selection of encryption strength. Typically, when we discuss using higher bit levels of security, were looking at things that are more secure and more difficult to break or hack. While the data blocks are broken up into 128 bits, the key size have a few varying lengths: 128 bits, 196 bits, and 256 bits. What does this mean? Lets back it up for a second here.

We know that encryption typically deals in the scrambling of information into something unreadable and an associated key to decrypt the scramble. AES scramble procedures use four scrambling operations in rounds, meaning that it will perform the operations, and then repeat the process based off of the previous rounds results X number of times. Simplistically, if we put in X and get out Y, that would be one round. We would then put Y through the paces and get out Z for round 2. Rinse and repeat until we have completed the specified number of rounds.

The AES key size, specified above, will determine the number of rounds that the procedure will execute. For example:

As mentioned, each round has four operations.

So, youve arrived this far. Now, you may be asking: why, oh why, didnt I take the blue pill?

Before we get to the operational parts of advanced encryption standard, lets look at how the data is structured. What we mean is that the data that the operations are performed upon is not left-to-right sequential as we normally think of it. Its stacked in a 44 matrix of 128 bits (16 bytes) per block in an array thats known as a state. A state looks something like this:

So, if your message was blue pill or red, it would look something like this:

So, just to be clear, this is just a 16-byte block so, this means that every group of 16 bytes in a file are arranged in such a fashion. At this point, the systematic scramble begins through the application of each AES encryption operation.

As mentioned earlier, once we have our data arrangement, there are certain linked operations that will perform the scramble on each state. The purpose here is to convert the plaintext data into ciphertext through the use of a secret key.

The four types of AES operations as follows (note: well get into the order of the operations in the next section):

As mentioned earlier, the key size determines the number of rounds of scrambling that will be performed. AES encryption uses the Rjindael Key Schedule, which derives the subkeys from the main key to perform the Key Expansion.

The AddRoundKey operation takes the current state of the data and executes the XOR Boolean operation against the current round subkey. XOR means Exclusively Or, which will yield a result of true if the inputs differ (e.g. one input must be 1 and the other input must be 0 to be true). There will be a unique subkey per round, plus one more (which will run at the end).

The SubBytes operation, which stands for substitute bytes, will take the 16-byte block and run it through an S-Box (substitution box) to produce an alternate value. Simply put, the operation will take a value and then replace it by spitting out another value.

The actual S-Box operation is a complicated process, but just know that its nearly impossible to decipher with conventional computing. Coupled with the rest of AES operations, it will do its job to effectively scramble and obfuscate the source data. The S in the white box in the image above represents the complex lookup table for the S-Box.

The ShiftRows operation is a little more straightforward and is easier to understand. Based off the arrangement of the data, the idea of ShiftRows is to move the positions of the data in their respective rows with wrapping. Remember, the data is arranged in a stacked arrangement and not left to right like most of us are used to reading. The image provided helps to visualize this operation.

The first row goes unchanged. The second row shifts the bytes to the left by one position with row wrap around. The third row shifts the bytes one position beyond that, moving the byte to the left by a total of two positions with row wrap around. Likewise, this means that the fourth row shifts the bytes to the left by a total of three positions with row wrap around.

The MixColumns operation, in a nutshell, is a linear transformation of the columns of the dataset. It uses matrix multiplication and bitwise XOR addition to output the results. The column data, which can be represented as a 41 matrix, will be multiplied against a 44 matrix in a format called the Gallois field, and set as an inverse of input and output. That will look something like the following:

As you can see, there are four bytes in that are ran against a 44 matrix. In this case, matrix multiplication has each input byte affecting each output byte and, obviously, yields the same size.

Now that we have a decent understanding of the different operations utilized to scramble our data via AES encryption, we can look at the order in which these operations execute. It will be as such:

Note: The MixColumns operation is not in the final round. Without getting into the actual math of this, theres no additional benefit to performing this operation. In fact, doing so would simply make the decryption process a bit more taxing in terms of overhead.

If we consider the number of rounds and the operations per round that are involved, by the end of it, you should have a nice scrambled block. And that is only a 16-byte block. Consider how much information that equates to in the big picture. Its miniscule when compared to todays file/packet sizes! So, if each 16-byte block has seemingly no discernable pattern at least, any pattern that can be deciphered in a timely manner Id say AES has done its job.

We know the advanced encryption standard algorithm itself is quite effective, but its level of effectiveness depends on how its implemented. Unlike the brute force attacks mentioned above, effective attacks are typically launched on the implementation and not on the algorithm itself. This can be equated to attacking users as in phishing attacks versus attacking the technology behind the service/function that may be hard to breach. These can be considered side-channel attacks where the attacks are being carried out on other aspects of the entire process and not the focal point of the security implementation.

While I always advocate going with a reasonable/effective security option, a lot of AES encryption is happening without you even knowing it. Its locking down spots of the computing world that would otherwise be wide open. In other words, there would be many more opportunities for hackers to capture data if advanced encryption standard wasnt implemented at all. We just need to know how to identify the open holes and figure out how to plug them. Some may be able to use AES and others may need another protocol or process.

Appreciate the encryption implementations we have, use the best ones when needed, and happy scrutinizing!

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Advanced Encryption Standard (AES): What It Is and How It Works - Hashed Out by The SSL Store - Hashed Out by The SSL Store

The EARN IT Act Threatens Privacy, but This Developer Is Fighting Back with an Encrypted Messaging System Based on Bitcoin Cash | Will Heasman -…

Bitcoin Cash developer Chris Troutner has taken the fight for privacy to new levels after creating an encrypted messaging system that harnesses Bitcoin Cash transactions.

Dubbed bch-encrypt, the system works in a similar way to email encryption.

"In email, you get someone's public key, encrypt the message, and only the person with the private key can decrypt the message," Troutner told Decrypt.

Similarly, within bch-encrypt, anyone can encrypt a message as long as they have a Bitcoin Cash address. The message gets written to the blockchain, and only a person with the private key held by that address can decrypt the message.

Troutner developed the messaging system as a response to the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act, currently the subject of hearings in the US Senate. The bipartisan legislative effort was formulated as a means to fight online child sexual abuse, but privacy advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have called the Act a disaster for Internet users free speech and security. They argue that EARN IT could be used to eliminate end-to-end encryption in instant messaging apps and other communications platforms.

For Troutner, this was a bridge too far.

"To prove how ineffective these lawmakers will be, I put this video demo of some software I wrote. It lets you encrypt a message and send it to someone using Bitcoin Cash, Troutner wrote on a Reddit thread. "There isn't a damn thing any state actor can do to stop the communication or break the encryption. Bitcoin does not respect laws."

Because the encryption leverages the Bitcoin protocol, he explains, there is no way for any company using it to comply with the EARN IT act.

"The decryption simply wouldn't work if anyone tried to comply with law enforcement on it. The billions of dollars at stake in the Bitcoin forks prove that the encryption can't be broken by any state actor," he said.

As for any limitationssuch as inundating the blockchain with surplus dataTroutner explained that as long as the system omits large files, there shouldn't be an issue.

"This technique could be expanded by leveraging IPFS, in order to encrypt and share large files," he said.

One condition of bch-encrypt is the necessity to provide a private key for payment when sending a message. When asked whether this could pose a security risk, Troutner reasoned that it wouldn't be prudent to store a lot of money on the address that controls encrypted messages.

Right now, bch-encrypt exists only on Github. However, Troutner intends to streamline the system to make it more widely accessible.

"I plan to create a web page on FullStack.cash where people can enter a 12-word mnemonic, someone else's Bitcoin Cash address, and a message, then click send. 1,2,3. That's how easy it will be to send encrypted messages to people on the Bitcoin Cash network."

He also revealed plans to integrate it into two blockchain-based decentralized social media platformsmemo.cash, a Twitter-esque platform, and member.cash, a site reminiscent of Reddit.

Decentralization has been mooted as a solution to the myriad issues currently facing centralized social media platforms. One advocate is Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has announced plans to create an open and decentralized standard for social media.

Dubbed Bluesky, the project aims to tackle entirely new challenges centralized solutions are struggling to meet, including abuse and misleading information.

Now, with the EARN IT act threatening privacy protections, decentralized social media projects could attract greater scrutiny.

This article was reprinted with permission from Decrypt.

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The EARN IT Act Threatens Privacy, but This Developer Is Fighting Back with an Encrypted Messaging System Based on Bitcoin Cash | Will Heasman -...

14 Tech Pros Predict The ‘Next Big Thing’ In Cybersecurity And Encryption – Forbes

Cybersecurity is a constant arms race. Because of its continuous evolution, what firms have solved for today might be obsolete by tomorrow. But unfortunately, many media outlets don't focus on the technical innovations of the industry and prefer to look at the failures of cybersecurity.

Instead of covering how encryption technology has evolved, media outlets cover how hackers have bypassed security measures. As a result, people may be less aware of what the current and future trends of cybersecurity and encryption are. To help educate and inform others, 14 experts from Forbes Technology Council explore the latest innovations and trends coming soon in the world of cybersecurity and why they are important.

1. Security By Design

Over the first 20 years of the internet age, security and encryption have been add-on products on top of systems built without it. For the next 20 years we'll see security from the ground up go mainstream. An example in today's world is the Apple iOS for iPhone/iPad or Microsoft Windows 10 with BitLocker and Defender enabled. - Bret Piatt, Jungle Disk

2. Proxy Re-Encryption

Fueled by the rise of distributed applications, new advancements in encryption technologies allow private data to be stored on public, decentralized networks. Exciting developments in proxy re-encryption (PRE) make this possible, and usability is critical. Data owners can grant or revoke access to their encrypted data without having to worry about the complexities of encryption and key management. - Mark Pryor, The Seam

3. Secure Multiparty Computation

This is an exciting time for cryptography. Secure multiparty computation (MPC) replaces dated hardware, realizing operational agility and cost-effectiveness, and is a natural fit for cloud. MPC eliminates single points of failure, and is synergetic with cybersecurity technologies, improving authentication, insider threat mitigation and key management while driving innovation. - Yehuda Lindell, Unbound Tech

4. More Customization And Smarter Solutions

The next big thing in cybersecurity will be responsive and predictive technologies underpinning sector-specific, real-time defense systems. There will be a shift away from reliance on one-size-fits-all security services and toward more intelligent and informative cybersecurity solutions customized to better engage, protect and serve particular industry ecosystems. - Charles Aunger, Health2047 - American Medical Association

5. Artificial Intelligence-Powered Cybersecurity

Expect more AI in cybersecurity, from both the perspective of a hacker and from those trying to defend against attacks. Hackers will be able to infuse AI-powered malware, for example, to infiltrate networks and stay dormant until it finds the optimal time to deploy its payload. On the flipside, security tools will use AI to identify anomalies that we may currently miss. Who will win is anyone's guess. - Jason Lau, Crypto.com

6. A Predictive Model To Eliminate Threat Vectors

The current generation of cyber protection using a solution that is divorced from the asset it is protecting so as to catch the predator in advance of the actual attack on protected resources will continue to be enhanced. Next big thing? The introduction of artificial intelligence and data analytics into a predictive model that will determine threat vectors and shut them down before they even start. - Jerry Nelson, Beyond Impact

7. Increased Focus On Physical Security

The vast majority of breaches and hacks come from a failure to maintain good physical security. The bottom line is most hacks start with someone gaining access to credentials. A hacker will not be successful if you do not invite them in. Want to lessen your risk of intrusion? Get streetwise and make sure your staff is, as well. "Think before you click" is my motto. - Wayne Lonstein, VFT Solutions, Inc.

8. Integration Of Self-Contained Tools

There is a difference between cybersecurity and digital privacy. But the two need each other to survive. I think the next big thing will be twofold. First, expect tools for communication that are self-containedwith privacy built into be integrated, so that information is kept within company borders. The second will be the growing use of AI to fight the other AI that is and will be most responsible for data breaches. - Gran Wgstrm, Idka

9. Use Of Data Access Security Brokers

Organizations need to separate the tools used for access control, such as encryption, from the data by inserting a layer between them that functions as a data access security broker. The broker will validate policies and authorize the user/application/device/etc. to access the data, allowing organizations to retain control of data at all times. - Jeff Capone, SecureCircle

10. Enhanced Third-Party Vetting

At the heart of many breaches plaguing the news are missteps by third parties many organizations work with. Third parties must be vetted carefully by an organization for their risk management and data protection policies and procedures, because they also use third parties, quickly spreading the original organizations data into a complex spider web. Proper vetting procedures can mitigate such a risk. - Matt Kunkel, LogicGate

11. Quantum-Resistant Cryptography

Encrypting information so only those who should be able to access it can, has been extremely valuable for cybersecurity, but with the coming of quantum computing, brute force attacks could become much more efficient and speedy. Quantum-resistant cryptography (QRC) algorithms will become increasingly important as quantum computing becomes more mainstream in the future with cyber adversaries. - Michael Xie, Fortinet

12. Homomorphic Security

In the ERP world, we battle cybersecurity every day, and for our massive amounts of data in our client databases we want to have an avenue that is more secure than in any other manner. As such, we have begun working with homomorphic encryption. No key stores anywhere for the data inside a database and no key stores for thieves to use data in any way. It would take two trillion years to break - Christopher Carter, Approyo

13. Increased Transparency And Ease Of Use

The biggest problem I've had in my 20-year cybersecurity career is that users will find ways to circumvent security technology if it makes their respective jobs more tedious. Continuous training with the right tech leads to greater adoption and security. For example, with proper training, the Corcoran $400k email scam would've been prevented. - Tim Maliyil, AlertBoot

14. More Focus On Protecting People

The next era of cybersecurity will focus on protecting people, not just the networks and devices they use. Today, most data breaches are caused by human error. Businesses need a people-centric approach to cybersecurity, layering awareness training with advanced machine learning technology to understand human behavior online, and predict and prevent incidents of human error before they happen. - Edward Bishop, Tessian

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14 Tech Pros Predict The 'Next Big Thing' In Cybersecurity And Encryption - Forbes

Encryption Software Market Overview by 2026: Verified Market Research Cole Reports – Cole of Duty

Microsoft Corporation

Global Encryption Software Market Segmentation

This market was divided into types, applications and regions. The growth of each segment provides an accurate calculation and forecast of sales by type and application in terms of volume and value for the period between 2020 and 2026. This analysis can help you develop your business by targeting niche markets. Market share data are available at global and regional levels. The regions covered by the report are North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, and Africa and Latin America. Research analysts understand the competitive forces and provide competitive analysis for each competitor separately.

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Global Encryption Software Market Regions and Countries Level Analysis

The regional analysis is a very complete part of this report. This segmentation highlights Encryption Software sales at regional and national levels. This data provides a detailed and accurate analysis of volume by country and an analysis of market size by region of the world market.

The report provides an in-depth assessment of growth and other aspects of the market in key countries such as the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States Italy, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. The chapter on the competitive landscape of the global market report contains important information on market participants such as business overview, total sales (financial data), market potential, global presence, Encryption Software sales and earnings, market share, prices, production locations and facilities, products offered and applied strategies. This study provides Encryption Software sales, revenue, and market share for each player covered in this report for a period between 2016 and 2020.

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Study Coverage: It includes study objectives, years considered for the research study, growth rate and Encryption Software market size of type and application segments, key manufacturers covered, product scope, and highlights of segmental analysis.

Executive Summary: In this section, the report focuses on analysis of macroscopic indicators, market issues, drivers, and trends, competitive landscape, CAGR of the global Encryption Software market, and global production. Under the global production chapter, the authors of the report have included market pricing and trends, global capacity, global production, and global revenue forecasts.

Encryption Software Market Size by Manufacturer: Here, the report concentrates on revenue and production shares of manufacturers for all the years of the forecast period. It also focuses on price by manufacturer and expansion plans and mergers and acquisitions of companies.

Production by Region: It shows how the revenue and production in the global market are distributed among different regions. Each regional market is extensively studied here on the basis of import and export, key players, revenue, and production.

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Hashtag Trending Netflix subscription enters the stratosphere; YouTube to curb misinformation; Zoom updates encryption – IT World Canada

April 23, 2020

New Netflix subscriptions surged in the past three months, YouTube will ban any video that contradicts WHOs guidelines, and Zoom finally introduces robust encryption.

Bored people stuck at home have flocked to Netflix to keep their minds off of social isolation. The numbers dont lie; in the first three months of 2020, Netflix has gained nearly 16 million new subscribers, close to double the number of sign-ups in the same period last year. More than half of the new tenants originated from overseas, including 7 million from Europe and 3.6 million from Asia. Although the pandemic has all but halted filming of new shows, now is the perfect time to discover classics and explore new genres.

Reddit is on fire after YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said any coronavirus content thats against WHOs guidelines will be banned from the platform. Its palpable that this move is to curb the spread of misinformation, which is arguably spreading faster than the virus itself. Unfounded advice has been plaguing the internet and social media alike; bogus cures claims like taking vitamin C and drinking bleach solutions have dangerous consequences and obfuscate actual medical advice written by experts. Always follow up on questionable tips to stay safe with proactive research.

Zoom has been desperately trying to recover its reputation after being hounded by security experts for its lackluster security. In its Zoom 5.0 update, Zoom has once again doubled down on addressing call security by introducing AES 256 GCM encryption to guard against data tampering during a meeting. The Zoom client also features a new security icon, which is prominently displayed in the meeting menu bar and groups together all the security and privacy options Zoom has to offer.

Thats all the tech news thats trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing.

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Hashtag Trending Netflix subscription enters the stratosphere; YouTube to curb misinformation; Zoom updates encryption - IT World Canada

Open source platform Jitsi plans to start offering a major security feature that Zoom, Microsoft, and Google lack: End-to-end encryption for video…

Ever since the coronavirus crisis erupted, 8x8's open source video conferencing platform Jitsi has seen a major increase in demand, the company says. Now, it's taking the first steps to become more secure than any of its competitors.

Since Atlassian sold Jitsi to communications company 8x8 in 2018, the platform powers 8x8's Video Meeting product, which has customers like Comcast, Greenpeace, and WeSchool, which has connected 500,000 educators and students in Italy during the coronavirus pandemic.

Jitsi has nearly 12 million monthly active users. That's an admittedly small number compared to giants like Zoom (200 million daily active users), Microsoft Teams (44 million daily active users), and Google's video product, Meet (which said in early April that it had two million new users every day, though it has not reported its total users).

Still, there's one area where Jitsi aims to set itself apart from its larger competitors: Security.

None of its rivals currently support end-to-end encryption, the most private form of communication where only the people participating in a conversation have access to it and potential eavesdroppers aren't able to understand the data. Zoom previously said it supported end-to-end encryption, but walked back those claims and changed its wording after The Interceptreported that it was misleading users.

While Jitsi doesn't offer end-to-end encryption for its meetings yet, it's embarking on a path towards doing so using standards from the open source communication software project WebRTC. Jitsi has published its plans and called on cryptographers to look at them and provide comments and suggestions. From there, Jitsi will review those comments to help it improve its proposed process before implementing it.

Bringing end-to-end encryption to Jitsi will be a massive undertaking it will need to build robust authentication features and encryption key management processes but Emil Ivov, the product's founder and head of video collaboration at 8x8, says that the company is ready for the challenge.

"It's a very complex problem but we're confident we'll get it," he told Business Insider.

While Jitsi published a long post about its process, Ivov mentioned two ways it plans to implement end-to-end encryption:

First, while Jitsi is competing with Google, it's using some of the company's security tools, too. Jitsi plans to use an API called called "Insertable Streams" that Google recently launched in conjunction with other features that it's building in-house. The API scrambles up video and audio in streaming, so that no third party including the service provider will be able to understand it and spy on people in the meeting.

Ivov says that Jitsi also plans to use the Double Ratchet Algorithm, which is used by the encrypted messaging app Signal.

Ivov started Jitsi while working on his PhD at Louis Pasteur University in France. Jitsi is an open source project, meaning that it's free for anyone to use, download, or modify. Soon enough, a community of developers started using it and building upon it.

Ivov and other teammates then started the company around the project called Blue Jimp, which Atlassian acquired in 2015. Atlassian sold Jitsi to 8x8 in 2018 when it decided to exit the videoconferencing space.

8x8 CEO Vik Verma 8x8

Today, Jitsi's open source code has over a million downloads and has been used for video conferencing in banking, education, and home security applications.

Ivov says that being open source is one of Jitsi's greatest strengths.

"From a security perspective, this is the only way you can truly know if you can trust something or not," Ivov said. "Unless you're open source, how else are you going to know this thing is secure?"

When software is open source, a user can peruse the code and verify themselves how secure it is, or trust that other people have already checked, he says. Misleading marketing isn't as effective with open source, since someone can more easily check the claims against the code. Also, with an open source project, there's an entire community of developers to collaborate on making the product as secure as possible.

Even before it rolls out end-to-end encryption, Jitsi has other features that make it more secure than competitors, Ivov says.

For example, a threat called Zoombombing has become popular during the coronavirus pandemic, where bad actors access meetings by correctly generating the URL and password. Jitsi is trying to mitigate the potential for these kinds of attacks in several ways: It provides a random meeting name generator that helps users pick hard-to-guess meeting names.

It also doesn't require meetings to be created in advance.

"For many platforms out there, in order to have a meeting, you have to create it first," Ivov says. "They end up being discoverable."

It can create meetings that are only active once the first person enters the meeting and deactivate when the last person leaves, giving bad actors less advance time to break in.

Finally, Ivov says that Jitsi also balances security with ease of use. Unlike Zoom or Microsoft Teams, users don't need to download anything when they want to use Jitsi.

"We specialize a lot in removing friction," Ivov said. "We want to make sure there's going to be nothing for you to download. It works in your browser."

Got a tip?Contact this reporter via email atrmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at646.376.6106,Telegram at @rosaliechan, orTwitter DM at@rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request.

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Open source platform Jitsi plans to start offering a major security feature that Zoom, Microsoft, and Google lack: End-to-end encryption for video...