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Classic disclaimer: there may be a better place to ask this question, if so comment and I will be happy to move it.

An example I'm looking for is related to recent scrutiny over energy consumption of bitcoin, such as here although there is no math in this example.

An example similar in nature is the math behind the question, "how long would it take to crack 128 AES"? -- Example 1 -- Example 2- from this forum

I am curious about the math, the numbers on this. In a perfect world with absolutely zero criminals, zero cyber crime, no identity theft, no data theft or sale, privacy breach etc, ad infinitum, we would not need any cryptography whatsoever. Of course a world like above is not possible to achieve, but it does beg the question, in an ever growing energy starved and energy concerned/paranoid society such as earth:

As of the year 2021 proceeding forward (as many years as you feel to calculate into the future), on a yearly statistical basis:

What is the expenditure of cryptography worldwide in each of the following categories:

  • Electrical energy consumption
  • Electrical energy cost in USD
  • Total time "wasted". Measured as non-concurrent cpu time.

In your calculation do not include (unless separate) any cryptocurrency numbers as this is dis-related to the pure question: in a perfect world with no need for cryptography relating to information tech.

Justifying "3 answers". Since arriving at one stable datum of calculation for the above, such as Total Time one could easily corollary or extrapolate the other two. I think posting a separate question is redundant and these give further data as well as further answer the question: What is the expenditure of cryptography worldwide...

UPDATED- simplified the question a little & justify how "3 answers" are extrapolations/corollary of one answer.

RobbB
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Taking a .50 BMG shot at this one with my eyes half open. My math is ballpark at best, and highly elementary. I'm not a mathematician in the slightest. I would still like to see genius level answers here. But to show that its relatively simple I'm shooting for this, prove me wrong ;)

Reference: percentage of web traffic that's encrypted as of 2020 - 80-90%

Reference: global IP data per month as of end 2021 - 278,108 petabytes

Reference: time to encrypt 1GB with AES 128 - 0.634 seconds

Parameters I'm using:

Web traffic calculations only, on a per month basis

85% of all web traffic, which is 236391.8 petabytes

0.634 seconds to encrypt 1GB

Assuming a baseline of AES 128

2.2 Ghz CPU @ 37 watts

I am not including any data at rest/client side cryptographic actions

Calculations:

41631222.55 hours to encrypt one months worth of traffic only once.

1.54 Gigawatt hours of energy

$184,800 of power cost

Multiplied twice since the traffic must be encrypted and decrypted:

83262445.1 hours to encrypt two-way

3.8 Gigawatt hours

$369,600 of power cost

Per Year globally:

999149341.2 hours to encrypt two-way

45.6 Gigawatt hours

$4,435,200 of power cost

What it translates to per person:

.19 hours of encryption/person per year

8.82 watts/person per year

$0.00085 per person/year

Conclusion

Not bad at all, according to my very very ballpark parameters and math. Compared to bitcoin/month at 7583.33 gigawatts its like a needle in a haystack...

RobbB
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