Quantum hardening

General
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This is a subject that I think requires a real solution to address the real threat. Although I expressed this concern and the solution in the Cosmos forum and discord it’s not anything that I’ve pursued. Implementation with one of the solutions isn’t overbearing, but I’ve deferred pushing the case because there’s more than one way to solve the problem.

Here are the two I’ve tossed out:

  1. Authgate out in front of the transaction enpoint which would roughly require an authtoken to initiate a transaction.
curl -X POST \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d'{"tx_bytes":"{{txBytes}}","mode":"BROADCAST_MODE_SYNC"}' \
    localhost:1317/cosmos/tx/v1beta1/txs

as such

curl -X POST \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer your_token"
    -d'{"tx_bytes":"{{txBytes}}","mode":"BROADCAST_MODE_SYNC"}' \
    localhost:1317/cosmos/tx/v1beta1/txs
  1. some flavor of a zero knowledge proof.

Another potential solution that recently caught my attention to this threat is smart contract wallets. This sequence diagram borrowed from Infinex Proposals outlines an implementation that would create quantum hardening conditions for smart contact enabled protocols.

xip-2-7
xip-2-71194×1288 39.8 KB

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I think it is important to outline first what the problem is.

Like:

  • TL:DR
  • Problem introduction
  • Problem description
  • Problem effects
  • Potential solutions

That would surely help understanding this topic :sweat_smile:

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TL&DR
Good feedback. It’s well known that quantum computers could be a vulnerability to cryptographic systems with their current architectures, either by brute force or by implementing shor or gover’s algorithm - hence the title, QUNTUM HARDENING.

Classical computers that run slices of a quantum function don’t run as efficiently as naturally derived quantum computers, but they are stable.

THIS WAS 7 YEARS AGO - apply something like Moore’s Law to the amount of quibits a systems like this posses over that time frame, and although that is probably top secret classified information - we can imagine that these systems are well beyond 56 quibits now.
IBM Simulates a 56-Qubit Machine - IEEE Spectrum

I’ve known for several years that DARPA is running a program researching this - it’s not like they don’t make public the programs advancing the quantum/classical architecture.
DARPA-Funded Research Leads to Quantum Computing Breakthrough
The program pursued a hybrid concept to combine intermediate-sized “noisy”— or error-prone — quantum processors with classical systems focused specifically on solving optimization problems of interest* to defense and commercial industry.

Introducing quantum resistance into systems sooner is better than later.

  • Biggest threat
    • Loss of user funds

Solutions shared above.

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