A CNRS team is working on Project Qastor, the encryption protocol that will guarantee our security in the browsers of the future.
Under the name Tor Project hides a decentralized network infrastructure and a browser that facilitates the anonymization of your Internet browsing sessions. From journalists working in censorship-hit countries to cybercriminals who like it for frequenting the Dark Web, all kinds of users have made it their own. Using Tor is not a 100% guarantee of security, however. and anonymity.
According to researchers at the CNRS Toulouse Systems Analysis and Architecture Laboratory, the advances observed in new technologies are dooming current cryptographic algorithms to obsolescence such as RSA encryption. Quantum computers will make short work of current defenses with ever more numerous, rapid and devastating brute force attacks. How, in the future, to ensure our anonymity, or at least the security of our data while we are always producing more data ?
The CNRS is building a new type of browser capable of resisting attacks from quantum computers
In an article titled ” will anonymous Internet browsing still be possible in the post-quantum era? ”, the Qastor Project team presents a new encryption protocol that aims to eliminate the weak points of the Tor network, namely algorithms such as RSA encryption, while retaining its operating principle. Attribute encryption will generate keys that are more difficult to exploitbecause they are better framed and adjustable over time, by geographical location, or even hierarchically.
To read – Tor: a hacked version of the browser is able to steal all your cryptocurrencies
A member of the team summarizes the purpose of their invention: QasTor is an alternative to Torwhich allows a connection and a faster and more suitable navigation for mass livestreaming “. To develop its concept, the CNRS exclusively used the personal data of motorists, but the results of their research can be generalized to other fields, because, in their own words, “the protection of personal data is now part of the essential criteria for innovative projects”. THE Project Qastor is still in its infancys, but the hope is that this research “allows future users of the Web to ensure that their privacy is respected”.
Source: CNRS Occitanie West