Hack the Future…Before Quantum Does

Aaron: Welcome to Tech Interruption, where we break up your days routine.

Mark: Join us as we unpack today’s technology disruptors in just ten minutes.

Aaron: Just ten minutes.

Mark: Just ten minutes.

Aaron: It’s the ultimate tech talk challenge.

Mark: Absolutely.

[Three. Two. One. Here we go.]

Mark: Hi I’m Mark Maglin. I’m VP for cybersecurity for
Defense and Intel here at Everforth ECS.
Started my career in the Navy 24 years of active duty service.
Started off driving ships and aircraft carriers, transitioned aviation
where I flew the E-2 Hawkeye conducting C4 ISR missions.
After the Navy transitioned to cyber security,
worked up at NSA, deploying enterprise solutions there
and then here with Everforth now for just over nine years.
Very excited about our mission here.
It’s always evolving in cybersecurity.
And now we’re even talking about the effects
of quantum computing on cyber security.

Aaron: And I’m Aaron Faulkner. I’m the co-founder of Tychon.
We build solutions for quantum readiness.
And I have about 25 years of experience bringing advanced technology solutions
to the federal government and have been very lucky to work with Mark for,
I think, over ten years now. It’s been a while.
Yeah, and we’ve done some really cool stuff together managed security services,
security operations, information assurance, and now quantum.

Mark: Quantum. Aaron: …quantum.
So you’re ready to get into this and do some tech talk.

Mark: Yeah! Let’s talk about quantum.

Aaron: Let’s do it.

[SEGMENT 1: WHAT IS QUANTUM?]

Aaron: So, can you help us just understand what is quantum
and what is the difference between quantum theory and quantum physics.
And what we’re here to talk about today quantum computing.

Mark: Sure, sure.
So we’re all familiar with Newtonian classical physics
where force equals mass times acceleration.
I push the cup and everything like that.
That works great all the way until you get to the atomic level.
And back Einstein started the special theory of relativity,
of what happens on particles at the subatomic level.
And that’s where things start to break down.
Light can be both a particle and a wave that operates both simultaneously,

Aaron: Simultaneously.

Mark: So, that’s one of the things that starts off.
And where that comes into computing is…
we’re used to zeros and ones, right.
Our computers today as transistors you’ve got zero volts or one volt.
And that’s all you have.
Quantum computing uses
actual physical particles, whether it’s an electron or atom
or something else like that, and that state of that atom.
So, that brings up two different things:
One is superposition, and the other one is entanglement.
The superposition is you can have two states at the same time.
It can be one and a zero at the same time.

Aaron: And that’s where we
derive a lot of the efficiency right now in quantum computing.

Mark: Exactly, exactly.
And the other part of it is entanglement.
Entanglement and says I’ve got these two particles that are entangled.
I can separate these two particles.
And if I push on this particle, this one is going to have that same…
same effect on the other one.
And what that brings in computing is
instead of having all these individual computations, we’re
now allow the quantum particles to do multiple calculations at the same time.

Aaron: And we’re to a point now.
And maybe, Professor Maglin, you can help us understand,
how did we get to a point where quantum computers are so capable, accessible.

Mark: Right.
Aaron: I can rent a quantum computer
from my phone from from Google or other providers, right?
And to a point where they are even capable of, you know, cracking classical encryption.

Mark: We’re there today!
The power of the quantum computer is accelerating
all the time with the investments and the technology that’s going into it.

Aaron: Awesome.

[SEGMENT 2: CYBER IN FOCUS]

Mark: So, Aaron! Now, we have quantum computers…
They’re nascent right now but they are operational.
And still kind of in the experimental phase.
But it’s right around the corner.
What is the threat now to cybersecurity and cryptography
that that increase compute power that quantum is going to bring?

Aaron: Yeah! So, we are truly in the era of post-quantum cryptography.
And so what that means is that all classical encryption,
the things that we’ve been counting on for decades, as a…
as the key foundation of trust, are all at risk.
And so, we need to start to understand
all the cryptography in our environments today and help our customers with that.
And this goes through this normal natural life cycle.
It’s very analogous to traditional vulnerability management.

Mark: It’s just another vulnerability.

Aaron: Sure.
So I need a firm discovery.
I need to establish an inventory.
I need to perform risk assessment against that inventory.
What are my weak ciphers?
What are my stronger ciphers?
And what’s the relationship of those between the assets they support?
Is that a high value asset?
Do I care more about the nuclear stockpile system
than I do the point of sale system in the cafeteria, right?

Mark: And that’s across even outside of defense, that’s also in the commercial sector,
is that you’ve got your business crown jewels that you need to protect.

Aaron: Yes. Mark: Absolutely.
So this is just another vulnerability…

Aaron: Yeah, you can prioritize it, right?
You know, you’re going to understand it.
And once you have that understanding that fourth step is is remediation.
And most of our customers today and the customers we are supporting together
are doing hygiene of their classical encryption.
And then they’re starting to understand and evaluate
what they’re going to need to leverage from post-quantum cryptography.
Whether it’s lift and shift for maybe some kind of custom
GOTZ application or monitoring what their vendors are providing,
you know, like a Microsoft, like an Oracle, etc.,
as they are doing their updates to their products to PQC.

Mark: Do we have time?

Aaron: I think we do have time. The date 2030. Mark: 2030?

Aaron: Industry experts: Gartner, NIST, NSA, CISA. 2030.
So, we have time.
But it’s just four years, but I’ll be here before we know it.

Mark: Time’s running out.

Aaron: Be here tomorrow. Mark: All right.

[SECTION 3: THE WILD CARD]

Aaron: All right, Mark!
So, Darth Vader has arrived at the table. Mark: Yes!!

Aaron: So, I guess we’re in the wild card!
So, my question for you is… When was the first time
you had, like, a recognition of “quantum”?

Mark: Well, I didn’t realize it was actually quantum at the time, but growing up,
watched Star Trek… and Star Wars came out.
They’re traveling at the speed of light.
Not to say that you can’t travel faster
than the speed of light, but how do they communicate
if they’re traveling to the speed of light? Aaron: Wait… hold on…
The first thing you were thinking of when you were watching,
like some of the coolest stuff ever was… Einstein theories?!

Mark: Yeah, well, I mean… We’re all geeks.
Anyhow, that whole thing of communicating faster than the speed of light.
I was like, how does that work?
But with quantum these days, with entanglement,
they’ve actually proven that you can actually do that.

Aaron: And what’s amazing is that we can measure that now.
Right! I mean, it’s hard to believe.

Mark: What about you?

Aaron: So for me, being an ‘80s kid,
I immediately think about Quantum Leap,
the show with Sam Beckett.
What I loved about that was their ability to kind of traverse time
forwards and backwards.
And the whole mission of the show was to go backwards, to understand
or solve for a problem that would make for a better, brighter future.
And the fact that consciousness could kind of traverse time with them was…
was really cool!
And so… it was a happy, positive show.
And for me… Boom! That was the first time I had recognition of quantum.
I also think, though of The Fly. Mark: The Fly!

Aaron: If you remember The Fly…
Yes, with Jeff Goldblum.

Mark: And the classic black and white one.
If you haven’t, go back and watch it.

Aaron: I have never seen that, but I am very familiar with the… the ‘80s version.
And man, that was terrifying, right?
That was showing where quantum…
Mark: Quantum goes bad.

Aaron: …teleportation goes bad.
Really bad… in a very bad and ugly way.
All right. So but, since you’re a Star Trek guy…
Are you a Klingon kind of guy or are you a Romulan kind of guy?

Mark: Well, Romulans had the the cloaking device.
And since we’re talking about quantum, I mean, cloaking is pretty cool.

Aaron: I knew you were going to go Romulan. Yeah, I had no doubt about that.
All right, so… Maglin the Romulan! We got it.

[SEGMENT 4: QUARKY COMPUTING]

Mark: So, Aaron, we’ve talked about quantum computing, right?
Nascent technology that’s out there today.
It’s available today in the cloud, not quite ready for prime time, but…

Aaron: It’s a little almost experimental. Mark: …almost experimental.
So, we’re getting there.
How is that going to change… We’ve talked about the security risk.
But what are the opportunities on the business side for quantum computing.

Aaron: I mean, quantum computing is going to be tremendous opportunities.
I think of things like medical research,
new drugs, doing new computational things
around… in financial services. Just discovery.
Now, certainly quantum computers are…
can be narrowly focused and what they are best at.
But there’s also a future where there will be opportunities for hybrid
workloads between quantum computers, supercomputers,
and even just what we can leverage in the cloud today, and of course, AI.

Mark: So, you know, I kind of look at it like cloud computing years and years ago
is that we had to look at all our applications and decide,
Should these be in the cloud? Are we going to migrate them?
And then that whole process,
we’re going to have to do the same thing with quantum computing.
We’re going to have to look at our applications,
see which applications are best suited.
We know AI is going to be huge.
Any large data analytics is going to be huge for AI.

Aaron: Absolutely.
I mean, I think that’s like a perfect analogy
because when we had to look at, how could we take advantage of native
cloud and services and start to migrate applications…
I think the same is going to be true for quantum computing.
We’re going to figure out that… What is my list of capabilities
that quantum can bring me the most advantages for?
We factor those applications to take advantage of quantum.
And then I know we mentioned, you know, the scary parts of quantum, right.
Like breaking all classical cryptography. Mark: Yeah!
[laughs nervously] Aaron: Kind of scary.
But there’s also like amazing opportunities
that it’s going to bring to the table that we should all be excited about.

Mark: Sure, sure.
And the opposite on the security side is we’re going to be able
to have better security using quantum technologies.

Aaron: Absolutely right.
That quantum is going to bring infallible encryption to us in the future.

00:09:24:25 – 00:09:26:28
Mark: Right! Exciting times. Aaron: Yes. Very exciting.

[SEGMENT 5: SENSOR SENSIBILITY]

Aaron: All right, Mark, so admittedly, the past several years…
I’ve been very narrowly focused on, like the post-quantum cryptography
aspect of quantum computing and the impact that it’s going to have
in the… from the lens and point of view of cybersecurity.
I’ve also been attending a lot of conferences
and have been surrounded by these brilliant PhDs
that are working on other solutions and capabilities that quantum brings to the table.
So, can you share maybe just a couple examples of what those look like?

Mark: Sure.
Quantum computing and quantum sensing is going to bring a revolution in our
new technologies that we haven’t seen before the electron microscope, the atomic clock.
They’ve been around for… for decades.
But we’re now able to do quantum sensing at that subatomic level
that’s going to revolutionize one thing position, navigation, and timing.

Aaron: That’s a game changer, right?
Because then we’re talking about an alternative to what we use now for GPS.

Mark: Yeah, GPS is vulnerable. Spoofable.
We’ll be able to have self-contained navigation systems
that are much more accurate and will not be able to jam
because they’re completely self-contained.
We’ll also be able to develop quantum sensors.
And this could be a new type of MRI machine that would be able to detect
at the atomic level,
you know, changes in your body, maybe do earlier cancer detections.
Maybe we put those quantum sensors in space
and be able to measure the titanic plate movements and be able to early
predict earthquakes or other climate issues on the Earth.

Aaron: So, there’s a bright future for a lot of elements and aspects of quantum computing.
Do you feel like we’re doing enough as a country?
I’ve heard a statistic that,
for example, China’s outspending us 20-to-1 in quantum.
How do we make sure?
And obviously this needs to be a national security imperative.
What are your thoughts?

Mark: Sure.
We have to one train our workforce and be prepared for this new technology,
but it’s also an investment at the national level
and individual companies to be able to take on this new technology
and really be the thought leaders and… and the leaders of the world
in this technology and a lot of… instead of abdicating
to some of these other countries to take the lead.

Aaron: Cannot wait to see what the future brings.

[OUTRO]

Aaron: Well, Mark, it’s hard to believe, but we’re out of time.
But we want to thank everybody out there for watching.

Mark: Well, Aaron, with quantum, we’re truly never out of time to mark.

Aaron: Touché, Mark!

Mark: But I want to thank Aaron and Tychon for their partnership.
Thanks for coming in today.
Join the Everforth team!
Where Smart People are talking about Cool Things,
Cool Technology and Doing really Cool Stuff!

Aaron: And I can attest! It is the Coolest!!

Mark: Thanks for watching.

[Three. Two. One. Here we go.]
[BLOOPERS]

Aaron: Ha! I see what you did there…
[nods]
[and nods]
[and nods some more]
[okay, enough nodding]
…sorry. [laughs in engineer]

Aaron: Join us as we unpack…
…our clothes.

Mark: We have to do the whole thing in one take.

Aaron: Oh, we do?!
Oh, we are SCREWED!

[quantum disco inferno]
[Marky-Mark approved]

Aaron: …I have never been so belittled in my life.
[oh gawd!!!]
[secret fist bump of quantumness] Mark: Last one!!

Aaron: …last one.

Narrator: “But it was not the last one, at all. Far from it.”