The Future And You--April 27, 2016

The Future And You

Timothy Baughman (professional Network Security Analyst & Master of Information Security) is our featured guest.

Topics: if quantum computers become publicly available, and are as powerful as we are told they will be, all of everyone's past encrypted secrets will be revealed to anyone who wishes to read them--emails, banking transactions, Silk Road purchases, the entire Darknet, and any money laundering hidden within the bitcoin blockchain. Future encryptions will be secure (at least for a while) but every previously encrypted file and document that is findable on the Internet will be laid bare. If you have ever done something that you shouldn't, and you are counting on encryption to keep your secret forever, you need to think again.

Also, accuracy of the computer hacking on the TV show Mr. Robot; methods hackers use to get your password; how little protection is provided by a fully encrypted hard drive; and why the hardest part of the computer security profession is "securing the human."

Also, the browser named Opera has announced that it will include VPN (virtual private network) as a default feature, and so your host speculates that this may soon prompt ALL browsers to include VPN.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 27, 2016 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes]

Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer, ghostwriter, and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last ten years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.