Chapter 219 The Price of Cooperation

A lot of cryptographic research has been focused on how to crack RSA, precisely because it is so important.

So cracking it is particularly meaningful.

So when Oraz said that global banking was no longer safe, Schneider's first reaction was RSA.

Only if RSA is breached will the entire banking business fall into an unprecedented crisis. The cornerstone of bank security will be breached for the first time, which will trigger a global crisis of confidence in banking business.

RSA is not only related to bank security, the security of almost all financial businesses such as securities and options cannot be separated from the protection of the RSA algorithm.

To be precise, global financial businesses will face an unprecedented crisis.

The bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish. The more sensational the event, the more valuable it is to operate.

Schneider quickly realized that there was room for maneuver: shorting global banks? No, shorting global traditional financial businesses.

With Goldman Sachs' strength, once they short sell, they will make at least tens of billions of dollars in profit, and it will be several hundred.

As for triggering a banking crisis across the United States, causing a much greater impact than the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank, or even putting the federal financial industry in trouble, this is not something Goldman Sachs needs to consider.

The federal financial business is in crisis, which is an opportunity for Goldman Sachs. It can kill two birds with one stone. When the Federal Reserve comes to the rescue, Goldman Sachs can get special loans from the Federal Reserve and make large-scale acquisitions in the capital market. What a wonderful thing it is.

Although Schnander showed no emotion on the surface, his hands were shaking slightly. He was already attracted by such a bright prospect.

“Yes, Mr. Samad means that he has cracked the RSA algorithm, and he will publish a detailed paper one day in the future to announce to the world that RSA is no longer secure.

Take this opportunity to short the global banking business. ” Oraz said.

Schneider knew that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that the fine he paid in Malaysia could be earned back a thousand times over.

To short the global banking industry, let's start with Malaysia. This will give Malaysia a little shock from the Asian financial crisis, thought Shenandoah.

"Goldman Sachs alone is not enough," said Snyder.

Oraz shook his head: "I am just delivering the message. I don't know what Mr. Samad thinks.

I have said everything I know. Goldman Sachs can inform me when it is ready to start. "

Schneider stood up and shook hands with Oraz: “I look forward to our next meeting.

I need to go back to headquarters to discuss this matter. Please help me convey to Mr. Samad that I wish to meet him in person."

Without wasting a moment, Schnander returned to New York with the latest intelligence.

"That's roughly the situation." Schnander repeated the information revealed by Samad.

“We need the collective cooperation of finance, media and Washington to complete the hunt for the global banking industry.

This will be a feast, gathering the strength of the entire United States to hunt for global banking business.

Samad gave us such a great opportunity.”

“We need to consider the risks, whether this will trigger a financial crisis ahead of schedule, and whether this round of financial crisis will have a more fatal impact on the federation.

At this point in time, the financial crisis will seriously weaken the federal government. "

“This is not something we need to consider. Besides, isn’t the financial crisis an opportunity for us?
It is true that the Federation suffered losses, but the losses suffered by other countries will only be greater.

We know what will happen in the future and are prepared in advance. We can reap the benefits of global banking business, which is enough to help the Federation minimize losses. "

This is a complete lie. Every time there is a financial crisis, the giants make money and the federal government loses money. Otherwise, the federal debt would not have skyrocketed year after year and would only surge once during a financial crisis.

The interests of the financial giants are not completely consistent with the interests of the federation.

"I think one thing we need to think about is what kind of breakthrough Samad made.

Is it that no matter how the RSA algorithm changes, it can be guaranteed to be cracked within seconds, or is it just a basic crack?

It can be cracked within 2048 seconds with the 30-bit RSA algorithm, but it cannot be cracked after it becomes 4096 bits.

The concept of this breach is too broad, and it depends on the specific level of Samad's breach." said Marco Argenti, chief information officer of Goldman Sachs.

"If it is a widespread breach, it means that global financial operations will no longer be safe for some time to come.

Financial businesses around the world need to find new encryption algorithms to replace RSA.

If the goal is to completely break the RSA algorithm in a broad sense, then it is impossible to solve the problem with a few simple lines of new code.

It will take at least a few years for any effective solution to be released, both for testing and deployment.

And the process of switching to a new algorithm is not easy, because the authentication infrastructure also needs to be updated. This infrastructure maintains the certificate hierarchy used to verify public keys. Basically, current mainstream browsers rely on the RSA algorithm.

In short, the impact of the RSA algorithm being hacked will last for several years, and during these years, the entire Internet will no longer be safe. "So this is an opportunity, there are too many places to short."

Information gap is opportunity.

Samad knew that he could not take advantage of such an opportunity by himself, but Goldman Sachs could. He hoped to follow Goldman Sachs and get a share of this feast? "The bald white man Solomon, the president of Goldman Sachs, smiled.

He couldn't imagine how big this piece of cake would be. He felt that Goldman Sachs couldn't finish it even with its strength.

"I think what we need to do now is to develop a strategy. In order to minimize the impact, I suggest we start with the banking industry in Europe and Japan and short the banks in these places first," said Schneider.

Marco Argenti seemed to remember something, and she searched frantically on the laptop in front of her:
“I think I know how Samad did it.

The RSA algorithm must have been cracked in a broad sense.”

Argenti said after finding what she was looking for.

Solomon asked, "Mark, what have you discovered?"

Marco Argenti said: "RSA algorithm, I know how Samad did it and what level of cracking it is.

In 21, German cryptographer Klaus Peter Schnoor claimed in his paper that he had found a way to crack the RSA encryption system.

Even earlier, as early as 1994, Peter Shor proposed the Shor algorithm named after him.

This algorithm can be used by quantum computers to crack the RSA encryption system in a very short time.

That is to say, a sufficiently large quantum computer can crack the RSA algorithm.

In 2001, IBM demonstrated the use of a quantum computer to decompose 15 into 3*5.
The algorithm proposed by Klaus Peter Schnoor also cannot be separated from quantum computers.

It’s just that today’s quantum computers are not powerful enough, so they can’t crack 1024-bit RSA encryption in a short period of time, but quantum computers have achieved a breakthrough.

Once the algorithm is updated, combined with breakthroughs in quantum computers, RSA will obviously become unreliable.

So it’s true what Samad said, that he breached what was, in a broad sense, an impenetrable fortress.”

Argenti looked at the introduction of Shor's algorithm on Wikipedia, and combined it with the fact that last year China first pushed the quantum bit to the tens of thousands.

Argenti realized instantly that RSA had been compromised in the true sense.

Argenti went on to say: “Peter’s paper in 21 attracted widespread attention from the cryptography and security communities. At that time, Google CEO Pichai said that in 5-10 years, quantum computing will break the encryption technology we know today.

In fact, his estimate was accurate: after five years, RSA was no longer reliable.”

The five-year period has expired.

Argenti didn't know why she felt sad. Perhaps it was because nothing in this world was eternal, and even the strongest fortress would be breached one day.

After the RSA algorithm was proposed, it protected human information security for nearly forty years, but now it has come to the day of being eliminated.

Others did not feel sad because of the rapid development of technology. They were all excited that they could soon harvest the world:

"We have to make a plan, we need some allies to share this pie with us all."

"Yes, we have to make a detailed enough plan. If we miss this opportunity, we won't have it again."

"The only one who knows about this besides us is Samad. Keep him calm and don't let him disobey our instructions and ruin our plan."

“Since Samad wants to get a piece of the pie, he will definitely not mess around.

How much should we give him?"

"He already has $2 million in capital, right? If we give him $2 million, double it, he should be satisfied, right?

In Malaysia, $2 million is a whopping amount of money.”

"Snander, go talk to him and see what he wants."

“What is our bottom line?”

“5 million US dollars, that’s the bottom line. He just provided the information gap. We are responsible for the specific operations, from the preparation of funds to the cooperation of the media.

He has no principal to arbitrage, and $5 million is enough. "

"$5 million is already the most expensive information security breach in the world. I also think this price is appropriate."

The Goldman Sachs executives present here would never have imagined that the fundamental reason why they could make tens of billions of dollars in profits came from Samad's technological breakthrough.

(End of this chapter)