Having something be decrypted after a specific amount of time

published Jun 04, 2014 09:28 by admin ( last modified Jun 04, 2014 09:28 )

Even though we have got used to computers getting faster all the time, the truth of the matter is that certain things, such as clock speed, have barely improved at all for many years. If we can find calculations whose speed are basically proportional to the clock speed one can therefore know, roughly, how long time that calculation will take in wall clock time (human time) on a single processor. If that calculation is a decryption, then you have made a secret that will not be revealed before a certain amount of time. The calculation must not be possible to parallelize.

The decryption process uses long chains of hashes so it can't be parallelized - one fast CPU can decrypt the file faster than a million slightly slower CPUs. Moores law long ago ended for scalar performance - CPU clock speeds haven't budged in years - so predicting how long it'll take for the decryption to happen is possible