Interview, Fireside Chat
a16z Podcast | Crypto, Security, CS, Quantum Computing, and More with Our New Professor-in-Residence
- Computer security is expected to deteriorate before improving as reliance on computing grows and data breaches expose more personal information, with public interest expanding due to the Internet of Things and increased cloud data collection.
- Stanford's Computer Science major is currently the largest on campus with ongoing growth projections, driving a "Computer Science Plus X" initiative to expand cross-disciplinary interaction and causing tremendous enrollment increases in computer security electives.
- Cryptography will continue to serve billions of daily users for secure connections, enabling researchers to combine deep mathematics with the development of extremely applied, deployed systems while computing power increases allow for larger, exponentially harder cryptographic numbers.
- Second-factor authentication adoption is projected to rise from a current 6% of Gmail users, with a likely evolution toward body-worn devices like smartwatches and glasses rather than smartphones, while biometric fingerprints are not expected to become a standard factor due to irreversibility and low secrecy.
- Large technology firms are expected to increasingly integrate security teams into the design phase to delay shipping upon vulnerability discovery, whereas startups skipping early threat modeling face significant long-term difficulties in modifying user interfaces for security.
- Implicit authentication methods are under development but currently suffer from false positive rates that prevent massive deployment, necessitating continued user vigilance against sophisticated social engineering attacks.
- Bitcoin usage is anticipated to see significant growth in the developing world as an alternative to non-existent banking infrastructure, while exchanges may be required to prove solvency daily using zero-knowledge mechanisms.
- Quantum computers are viewed as a looming threat capable of breaking current encryption and digital signatures, with speculation regarding their realization within the speaker's lifetime but uncertainty regarding timing; if built, the community expects a transition to new primitives resistant to quantum decryption.
- Password managers embedded in browsers are identified as vulnerable to generic attacks, with specific proposals to strengthen them already adopted by major technology companies.
- Future software development is expected to universally engage in threat modeling to explicitly identify attacks and design preventative measures, while research initiatives are anticipated to be driven by ideas emerging from startups.