[blurbleblurble]

If anything, I'm invoking the mystery of mathematics. Here is a list of unsolved problems in mathematics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_m...

Seriously though, I'm talking about something qualitative here. When I read about these side-channel attacks yesterday I had this crazy gut feeling about how exposed our technologies are to those who learn to understand them deeply.

There's an complementary kind of arrogance to the one you're suggested: "anything I don't understand couldn't possibly be a threat... since I could never easily exploit it, it'd be way too hard for someone else to."

But have you listened to the radiolab about the z-cash cryptography ritual? It's very enjoyable and has a spooky surprise ending:

http://www.radiolab.org/story/ceremony/

[drvdevd]

I think I see where you are coming from and had, I think, a similar feeling.

This class of attack sits in that “uncanny valley” of:

1) possibly easy to spot when looked for in the right way [edit: to use the QC analogy: search for classical algorithms which are easily broken]

2) totally systemic across almost all currently deployed technology

is that what you mean?

[blurbleblurble]

Yes, definitely, that's the kind of thing I'm thinking about, especially #2. Whereas a lot of exploits are happening with updateable software, it's rare that hardware gets hit so hard. This stuff hit on a deeper level.

I hope I don't offend anyone too badly here with this medical analogy, but it's like finding out you have a bad flu vs. finding out you have Parkinson's.

Or, it's like seeing someone in a different light for the first time... maybe you've known them for decades, but all of the sudden, you see them in this completely different way.