Current Crypto Trends with Bruce Schneier 196
Saint Aardvark writes "SecurityFocus has published an interview with Bruce Schneier. Fascinating stuff, especially the level-headed assessments of the NSA, spam and the impact of full disclosure: 'Q: Since most crypto protocols on the internet, such as SSL or SSH, uses public-keys to build a secure channel, wouldn't a unexpected public disclosure create a chaos on the internet ? A: No. Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet. Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos.'"
Article text, ROT13'd for the paranoid (Score:5, Funny)
V'z n frphevgl grpuabybtvfg. Zl pnerre unf orra n frevrf bs trarenyvmngvbaf. V fgnegrq jbexvat va pelcgbtencul: zngurzngvpny frphevgl. Gura V ernyvmrq gung nyy gur pelcgbtencul va gur jbeyq jba'g uryc vs gur pbzchgre vf vafrpher, naq nyy gur pbzchgre frphevgl jba'g uryc vs gur argjbex vf vafrpher. Fvapr gura, V unir orra pbapragengvat zber ba gur fbpvny naq rpbabzvp nfcrpgf bs frphevgl, ernyvmvat gung nyy gur grpuabybtl va gur jbeyq jba'g uryc vs gubfr nera'g qbar evtug.
Zber ba zl onpxtebhaq pna or sbhaq ba fpuarvre.pbz
AFN yvprafrq Pregvpbz'f RP cngragf sbe $25 zvyyvba ynfg lrne, naq erpragyl naabhaprq gur arj HF tbireazrag fgnaqneq sbe xrl nterrzrag naq qvtvgny fvtangherf, pnyyrq Fhvgr O. Vg hfrf Ryyvcgvp Pheir Qvssvr-Uryyzna (RPQU) naq Ryyvcgvp Pheir Zrarmrf-Dh-Inafgbar (RPZDI) sbe xrl nterrzrag, naq Ryyvcgvp Pheir Qvtvgny Fvtangher Nytbevguz (RPQFN) sbe fvtangher trarengvba/irevsvpngvba. Qb lbh guvax gung AFN vf cebzbgvat RPP onfrq pelcgb orpnhfr gurl pnaabg penpx EFN/QFN onfrq bar ?
V qb abg. V oryvrir gur AFN oryvrirf gung RPP vf fgebat. V jebgr nobhg RPP urer:
uggc://jjj.fpuarvre.pbz/pelcgb-tenz-9911.ug zy#Ryyv cgvpPheirChoyvp-XrlPelcgbtencul
Nygubhtu V jebgr gung va 1999, V nz fgvyy fxrcgvpny nobhg ryyvcgvp pheirf.
Be znlor whfg orpnhfr gurl pna penpx EFN/QFN gurl cersre gb cebgrpg HFohfvarff jvgu RPP (fhccbfrq gb or uneqre gb penpx)?
Jvgu fhssvpvrag xrl yratguf, nyy bs guvf vf hapenpxnoyr. V qba'g oryvrir gung gur AFN unf nal frperg zngurzngvpf gung gurl hfr gb oernx EFN/QFN be RPP.
Jbhyq n dhnaghz pbzchgre qb gur wbo ?
Va gurbel, lrf. Va cenpgvpr, jr unir ab vqrn ubj gb ohvyq bar gb qb vg. Znlor va svsgl lrnef. Be gjragl-svir.
Fbzr gvzr ntb lbh pb-nhguberq n cncre ba fbsgjner zbabcbyl evfxf. Jung nobhg pelcgb zbabcbyl? Qba'g lbh guvax gung univat whfg n pbhcyr bs choyvp-xrl nytbevguzf onfrq ba gur fnzr zngu ceboyrz pbhyq yrnq gb n pngnfgebcur vs penpxrq ?
Gur frphevgl nqinagntrf bs n pbzzba pelcgbtencuvp nytbevguz sne bhgjrvtu gur qvfnqinagntrf. V'ir jevggra nobhg gung nf jryy:
uggc://jjj.fpuarvre.pbz/pelcgb-tenz-9904.ugzy#qv ss rerag.
Jung jbhyq lbh qb vs lbh sbhaq n fbyhgvba gb gur snpgbevmngvba ceboyrz?
Nal pelcgbtencure, vs gurl sbhaq fbzrguvat fb fvtavsvpnag nf n fbyhgvba bs gur snpgbevmngvba, jbhyq choyvfu gurve erfhygf. Fhpu n qvfpbirel jbhyq yvxryl erfhyg va cebsbhaq punatrf va ubj jr ivrj ahzore gurbel, naq jbhyq or gur zngurzngvpny qvfpbirel bs gur qrpnqr...naq znlor rira zber vzcbegnag.
Fvapr zbfg pelcgb cebgbpbyf ba gur vagrearg, fhpu nf FFY be FFU, hfrf choyvp-xrlf gb ohvyq n frpher punaary, jbhyqa'g n harkcrpgrq choyvp qvfpybfher perngr n punbf ba gur vagrearg ?
Ab. Punbf vf uneq gb perngr, rira ba gur Vagrearg.
Urer'f na rknzcyr. Tb gb Nznmba.pbz. Ohl n obbx jvgubhg hfvat FFY. Jngpu gur gbgny ynpx bs punbf.
Va gur frphevgl pbzzhavgl gurer ner inevbhf jnlf bs guvaxvat nobhg ihyarenovyvgvrf qvfpybfher (choyvp-, shyy-, erfcbafvoyr-, ab-). Jung vf gur fvghngvba va gur pelcgb pbzzhavgl ? Jung glcr bs qvfpybfher cebprff vf gurer ?
Zbfg frphevgl cebsrffvbanyf oryvrir va shyy qvfpybfher, naq pelcgbtencuref ner ab rkprcgvba. Gur nqinaprzrag bs gur fpvrapr vf orfg freirq ol gur serr rkpunatr bs vqrnf.
Jul vf bsgra hfrq n zbarl-erjneqrq punyyratr gb irevsl n pelcgb nytbevguz?
Orpnhfr vg'f serr pbafhygvat jbex, naq zbarl vf na nggrzcg gb nqq fbzr svanapvny vapragvir. Zbfg bs gur gvzr vg'f n funz. Juvyr gurer ner fbzr yrtvgvzngr pbagrfgf, zbfg ner whfg nggrzcgf gb tnva choyvpvgl.
Erpragyl fbzr cncref nqqerffvat unfu shapgvbaf jrer choyvfurq, naq lbh fhttrfgrq ba lbhe oybt gung vg'f gvzr gb trg gb jbex ercynpvat FUN. Lbh jebgr: "Gur AVFG nyernql unf fgnaqneqf sbe ybatre -- naq uneqre gb oernx -- unfu shapgvbaf: FUN-224, FUN-256, FUN-384, naq FUN-512. Gurl'er nyernql tbireazrag fgnaqneqf, naq pna nyernql or hfrq. Guvf vf n tbbq fgbctnc, ohg V'q yvxr gb frr zber." Jul q
Re:Article text, ROT13'd for the paranoid (Score:1)
mmmm, the letter V.....
--
lds
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Article text, ROT13'd for the paranoid (Score:2)
More vowels please! MORE VOWELS!
Re:Article text, ROT13'd for the paranoid (Score:2)
O Mighty Cthulhu,
Destroyer of Worlds,
Betrayer of Hope,
Unstoppable Force of Annihilation,
Please cast your attention
towards someone else.
I really don't care who.
Feel free to eat my neighbor,
my spouse, my dog.
Anyone that isn't me.
Cthulhu fhtagn, Cthulhu fhtagn!
Please go back to fhtagn-ing,
whatever that may be.
Re:Article text, ROT13'd for the paranoid (Score:2, Informative)
ROT13 en/decoder [rot13.com]
Re:Article text, ROT13'd for the paranoid (Score:3, Funny)
2. Post decrypter with original account
3. Proffit!
Re:Article text, ROT13'd for the paranoid (Score:4, Funny)
Man- what a letdown.
Re:Article text, ROT13'd for the paranoid (Score:5, Funny)
You think thats secure? For the ultra paranoid I've encrypted it into ROT26:
Could you introduce yourself ?
I'm a security technologist. My career has been a series of generalizations. I started working in cryptography: mathematical security. Then I realized that all the cryptography in the world won't help if the computer is insecure, and all the computer security won't help if the network is insecure. Since then, I have been concentrating more on the social and economic aspects of security, realizing that all the technology in the world won't help if those aren't done right.
More on my background can be found on schneier.com
NSA licensed Certicom's EC patents for $25 million last year, and recently announced the new US government standard for key agreement and digital signatures, called Suite B. It uses Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) and Elliptic Curve Menezes-Qu-Vanstone (ECMQV) for key agreement, and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) for signature generation/verification. Do you think that NSA is promoting ECC based crypto because they cannot crack RSA/DSA based one ?
I do not. I believe the NSA believes that ECC is strong. I wrote about ECC here:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9911.html#Elli pticCurvePublic-KeyCryptography [schneier.com]
Although I wrote that in 1999, I am still skeptical about elliptic curves.
Or maybe just because they can crack RSA/DSA they prefer to protect USbusiness with ECC (supposed to be harder to crack)?
With sufficient key lengths, all of this is uncrackable. I don't believe that the NSA has any secret mathematics that they use to break RSA/DSA or ECC.
Would a quantum computer do the job ?
In theory, yes. In practice, we have no idea how to build one to do it. Maybe in fifty years. Or twenty-five.
Some time ago you co-authored a paper on software monopoly risks. What about crypto monopoly? Don't you think that having just a couple of public-key algorithms based on the same math problem could lead to a catastrophe if cracked ?
The security advantages of a common cryptographic algorithm far outweigh the disadvantages. I've written about that as well:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9904.html#diff erent [schneier.com].
What would you do if you found a solution to the factorization problem?
Any cryptographer, if they found something so significant as a solution of the factorization, would publish their results. Such a discovery would likely result in profound changes in how we view number theory, and would be the mathematical discovery of the decade...and maybe even more important.
Since most crypto protocols on the internet, such as SSL or SSH, uses public-keys to build a secure channel, wouldn't a unexpected public disclosure create a chaos on the internet ?
No. Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet.
Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos.
In the security community there are various ways of thinking about vulnerabilities disclosure (public-, full-, responsible-, no-). What is the situation in the crypto community ? What type of disclosure process is there ?
Most security professionals believe in full disclosure, and cryptographers are no exception. The advancement of the science is best served by the free exchange of ideas.
Why is often used a money-rewarded challenge to verify a crypto algorithm?
Because it's free consulting work, and money is an attempt to add some financial incentive. Most of the time it's a sham. While there are some legitimate contests, most are just attempts to gain publicity.
Recently some papers addressing hash functions were published, and you suggested on your blog that it's time to get to work r
provable crypto (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Formaly defining both the working model (network, involved parties, computational & other capbabilities...)
2) Defining the variouse forms of security to be achieved. (For example a protocol must be secure if run once, many times in a sequential manour or even in a concurrently manour. Each is a different
Re:Article text, ROT13 for the paranoid (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting interview... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting interview... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Interesting interview... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting interview... (Score:2)
In an age where politicans answer questions with irrelevant blather [slapnose.com], I'm starting to appreciate getting a one-sentence answer as opposed to an eloquent speech of no real substance.
Re:Interesting interview... (Score:2)
So this is mostly targeted at the uninitiated. Fortunately, with cryptography, that's about 99.9% of the population.
Re:Interesting interview... (Score:2)
Nothing to see here, please move along. (Score:1, Redundant)
within (Score:4, Funny)
Whoops! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.schneier.com/blog [schneier.com]
Sorry about that!
Wrong URL (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2, Insightful)
Then part of me wonders if maybe he just doesn't care anymore and is sick and tired of people asking the same questions. Its gotta be tiring having to answer the same series of policy questions over and over again, especially when, as
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2)
But everyone already knows that, hell, in the end you can just torture people to get the passphrase/keycard or whatever dodad is being used to create the secure loop. Whats missing is some information on what can be practically done to create adequate security, to which I hardly ever hear BS refer.
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2)
Having read his last book (Beyond Fear [slashdot.org]), I can't imaging that BS has any difficulting repeating the same thing over-and-over-again (Maybe it's different when he's being paid by the word ;^).
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2)
I just think the book could have been 1/3 the size.
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:5, Informative)
Go read "Beyond Fear". That's precisely the opposite of what he's saying. He's saying security is not a binary all-or-nothing thing, and that for the vast majority of people, there really is such a thing as "secure enough". Not that the current state of the art is anywhere close to that, but that it's not some platonic ideal, it's in fact quite reachable now.
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2)
Interesting. Maybe I'll have to read the book, because I don't see how individuals can effectively combat identity theft.
Sure you can buy and use a shredder and avoid bad websites, but at some point you're going to want to buy a house or car, or get a job. And when that happens, someb
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2, Interesting)
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=0312319061 [google.com]
how to be invisible.
once upon a time, i rented a house. i thought it was a little odd the guy met me at mcdonalds to sign the lease, instead of at an office.
he was an ok landlord - left me alone.
at one point i did a little digging - the house was owned by "klv trust #47."
who was that masked man?
now this guy had a guy who did odd jobs for him.
i am a public interest attorney. it doesn't pay
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2)
Repetition (especially to fools) is constructive (Score:2, Interesting)
Security professionals know there are certain basic ideas to apply towards security. If they consult, they apply the same basic lessons again and again to several people and often repeat themselves to repeat customers. If the work as a security profession in one organization, they repeat the same thing for their whole career.
The good thing about S
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2)
You want security?
Read up on ninjutsu. They had the philosophy down pat in Japan eight hundred years ago.
Re:Nothing constructive from Schnier anymore (Score:2)
Which is very obviously true.
and no currently proposed measures are going to help.
This however is not true, and Schneier hasn't said it that I've seen.
He *has* said that a large fraction of the "security measures" introduced by various firms these days are useless or worse.
He has also said (numerous times) that the correct question is not: "How can we become secure?" but instead: "How can we bring the risks down to an acceptable level ?"
Driving a
Please stop abusing the English language (Score:5, Insightful)
"Do you think that NSA is promoting ECC based crypto because they cannot crack RSA/DSA based one?"
What?
"Or maybe just because they can crack RSA/DSA they prefer to protect USbusiness with ECC (supposed to be harder to crack)?"
Huh?
"What about crypto monopoly? Don't you think that having just a couple of public-key algorithms based on the same math problem could lead to a catastrophe if cracked ?"
This doesn't follow any European-language grammar.
But the next question takes the cake:
"Why is often used a money-rewarded challenge to verify a crypto algorithm?"
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
The last quote has got to be German via Babelfish.
--Pat
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
No, the sentence structure had to be different. The German word for "used" would have to be placed at the end of the sentence: Warum wird
The Fish can't do that. It's dumb as a brick.
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
Why is often a money-rewarded challenge used to a crypto algorithm verify?
Sometimes I think Yoda is German
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
"Why is often used a money-rewarded challenge to verify a crypto algorithm?"
Just because somebody is dyslexic doesn't mean fun should you make of their grammar.
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:5, Funny)
"Why is often used a money-rewarded challenge to verify a crypto algorithm?"
Yeah, but can the ate it too?
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
"Shouldn't be better looking for what is known as a good thing, and block all the rest without analyzing it? "
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
It's meant as an aside - he's explaining that ECC is supposed to be harder to crack. This is an artefact of trying to write English as dictation: if you spoke that, you could highlight the aside without disengaging your audience by breaking the rhythm of speech and changing both your tone of voice and volume. The written word can't do any of those. You can try and simulate it with
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
Re:Please stop abusing the English language (Score:2)
Huh? Those two sentences make perfect sense to me, and neither of them break any rules of English grammar (or even any rules of English style that I can think of). What do you think is wrong with them?
Re:No prize for you (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree: the two you corrected aren't very readable without the modifications. Worse, they're confused on the technical details so a technically-informed reader will stumble: this still doesn't make sense:
unless "RSA/DSA" is a compound crypto scheme - which it isn't
Good interview, better links (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good interview, better links (Score:2)
Re:Good interview, better links (Score:2)
bad example (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:bad example (Score:3, Insightful)
WEP and SSL aren't perfect - but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use them. Some degress of "chaos" would result if you stopped altogether. Just head on down to Panera, the library, or a college campus and pick up all the email accounts, credit cards, etc. that you desire.
Re:bad example (Score:2)
Over all, I don't think he's got a "why bother" attitude, or else why would he be trying so hard to educate people on reasonable, effective security?
An interesting read from one of his essays:
Re:bad example (Score:3, Insightful)
That's true, but WEP isn't entirely useless as one layer in the system. If somebody is war driving down my street looking for an easy target, the few minutes it will take them to crack my WEP key is often enough to keep them driving on.
Think of WEP as a locked window. As a security system, a window is crap. It can be broken without any tools and you can even see what's behind it!
Re:bad example (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's see him buy that book after an SSL disclosure is made.
Wouldn't change much. Even if you assume that SSL was so badly broken that there was no difference between using SSL and just sending everything in plaintext (very unlikely -- it's much more likely that decrypting an SSL link would still take some non-trivial amount of computation), Amazon.com probably woudn't even bother to remove the option of using SSL.
If Amazon did remove SSL entirely (to save CPU time?), people would still buy books fr
Re:bad example (Score:2)
Re:bad example (Score:3, Insightful)
My bank, for example, displays account numbers in full on the screen. Seems like they would be forced to shut down accesses indefinitely, and since my bank is online-only, it means huge loss of business if not going out of business.
On-line only banks would indeed be in trouble until a replacement technology could be fielded.
Since SSL is a "pluggable" protocol, if RSA were broken, ECC, or Diffie-Hellman or something else could be substituted instead. This might require you to download a browser updat
Re:bad example (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bad example (Score:2)
Yes, and I'm pretty sure I've heard of that being exploited by naughty waiters, too. This is why I never let the card go out of my sight, and it's also why I favour a nice strong crypto connection to websites whilst shopping.
Re:bad example (Score:2)
This analogy is horribly flawed in both the attack vector and the viability of attack.
When you go to a restaurant and hand your credit card to the waiter, the waiter swipes your card and returns it to you. There is the opportunity for the waiter himself, and potentially one or two other people
AA Roadwarrior Bruce Schneier article (Score:5, Funny)
"Bruce Schneier
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I had a free day on a business trip to Seoul, so I decided to do a bit of sightseeing. Yoseu, a random town at the end of a train line, seemed as good a place as any to explore, so I bought a round-trip ticket.
The market was still crowded even though it was dusk by the time my train arrived. I stopped in front of what looked to be a restaurant. On the floor in front of the store were water-filled pails with things inside. I recognized squid in one, oysters in another, and clams in a third. There were three others: orange bulbous things with puckers, long brown things with puckers, and long smooth white things that half floated and half sank. I assumed they were all alive.
The woman who sat behind this menagerie looked up at me. I pointed to the orange things, pointed to the brown things, pointed at the tables inside of the store, and smiled.
She smiled back, got up, and walked into the restaurant. I followed her.
There were four long tables, all empty. I sat down at the far table. The woman brought three orange things and three brown things and proceeded to clean them. She set two bowls of water out in front of her: a green one and a white one. She cut open the orange things and put the orange insides in the green bowl, and the orange outsides in the white bowl. Then she cut open the brown things and put the brown outsides in the green bowl with the orange insides, and the brown insides in the white bowl with the orange outsides. I didn't have the foggiest idea which bowl was for eating and which was for throwing away.
After she was finished, she started cutting up the orange insides and the brown outsides. All I could think at this point was: Please cook this. Whatever you do, please cook this. Then I noticed that there wasn't a stove anywhere.
She put the orange and brown things on a plate and set it in front of me. Then she gave me a bowl of hot sauce, a bowl of kimchi, and a cup of cold tea.
I looked at my plate. I didn't even know what phylum the stuff came from.
She then presented something to me with a flourish and a big smile. It was a fork. Well, I had to take it. I really didn't want it, but she'd probably had this fork for years, it was probably her only one, and I was probably the first American brave enough to eat there. I couldn't spoil it for her.
I took the fork and stabbed a brown thing. She was watching me as I put it in my mouth. It was chewy, but it tasted pretty good. I tried an orange thing. It wasn't as good. I smiled at her. She smiled back and went outside.
She poked her head in from time to time. Once she brought a friend. She told her something in Korean. Probably something like: "Look at that. I gave him the orange insides and the brown outsides, and he doesn't even know the difference."
I just smiled. What else could I do?
Chief Technical Officer, Counterpane Internet Security, Inc.
Age: 41"
Re:AA Roadwarrior Bruce Schneier article (Score:2)
Anyone who is witfluent in Korean food want to follow up on what type of food that might have been?
He didn't answer the question (Score:5, Interesting)
[Emphasis mine.]
How is that an unexpected public disclosure? With that example, he alters the conditions of the experiment, just like opening Schroedinger's box.
If 5,000 people went to Amazon.com and bought something with the expectation that the connection was via SSL, and it turns out it wasn't, the smarter of those 5,000 people would be closing their credit card accounts and their Amazon.com accounts, and demanding restitution from Jeff Bezos for their compromised personal information. Amazon.com would fight them tooth and nail.
Now, tell me that isn't chaos.
With such a pronouncement "from on high" like that, my respect for Mr. Schneier took a serious hit.
Re:He didn't answer the question (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to say it, but most of the people running around crying 'the secure sky is falling' are clueless (vast majority) or are trying to make money from it (Schneier et al.)
Crypto is part of a total solution. And as is always the case, the weakest link determines the overall strength. You can have the best military encryption on the planet, and if you write your password on a sticky note and tack it to the bottom of your keyboard the encryption doesnt do dick. There are far too many weak points on the internet, for someone who knows what is really going on, to get very excited about encryption.
How many of the thousands of ID thefts that occurred recently (Bank of America) were originated on a secure (SSL?) link? Answer: probably all of them. See? SSL isn't really all that helpful. Its one of those markets that was created to make money, and the vast majority of the public believe they are buying value.
While I generally take everything Scnierer says with a grain of salt (because I know he says what someone pays him to say) I'd have to agree with him on this one. No panic, no chaos, no big deal.
Re:He didn't answer the question (Score:2)
Not true. I send my credit card through un-encrypted email all the time. People on the receiving end freak out and go into panic. Guess what? Never had a bit of trouble.
That's an interesting take. For the sake of putting one's money where one's mouth is, would you mind repeating all relevant data (name, card type, number, expiration date, security code) here?
Assuming you won't, why is that? And why doesn't that apply to the e-mail scenario you provide?
Thank you.
Re:He didn't answer the question (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting. What do you base that on?
The rest of your post makes a lot of sense, so I'm taking the chance that I'm being trolled here...
Re:He didn't answer the question (Score:2)
Try running your own mail server some time. You'll notice that all the ones that are currently in use pretty much include their own little programming language. Besides simply reading the mail spool, or sniffing the wire, the server itself could be set up to report anything that looks like a card number.
So, you haven't had any problems yet. That can mean several things. Perhaps nobody is sniffing your current link, or they missed your data, or they got it but didn't use it, or they made a small c
Re:He didn't answer the question (Score:2, Insightful)
Again, that uber hard steel deadbolt 10 feet from a pane of glass is about as stupid as it gets. The weak link sets the level of security.
I emaila credit card number AND I LIVED! (Score:2, Insightful)
It's just a matter of probability - if you have a 1 in 1000000000000000 chance of having a number stolen because of a problem with SSL, you probably have a 1 in 1000000000 chance of having THE packet with your credit card number stolen in transit because some baddie is snooping on the connection.
Of course, once your CC number arrives on the destination server, whether it arrives via SSL or plain-text HTTP, it is logged
Re:He didn't answer the question (Score:2)
the smarter of those 5,000 people would be closing their credit card accounts and their Amazon.com accounts, and demanding restitution from Jeff Bezos for their compromised personal information.
Actually, the smarter of those 5,000 people would do absolutely nothing, knowing that the odds of their information being compromised in transit are negligible (more likely to be stolen by a waiter), and further that the effect on them of having their credit card number stolen, if it were to happen, is likewise n
Uncrackable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uncrackable? (Score:2)
This is actually doable with todays' algorithms, with reasonably large keys. Sure, it won't be realtime, but still ...
Re:Uncrackable? (Score:2)
It would take 1090748135619415929462984244733782862448264161996 2 326924318327861897\
21331849119295216264234525201 987223957291796157025 273109870820177184\
06361097976507755479907890629 884219298953860982522 804820515969685161\
35916381967718865426093245601 212905
Why do you bring in 2^8192? (Score:2)
Extrapolating from here you 8192bit RSA key is likely at most "only" as expensive
Re:Uncrackable? (Score:2)
Let's take a key of 256 bits. How many combination are there? 2^256 ~= 1.16x10^77. WLOG, round to 4x10^77.
That's 2 order of magnitude smaller than the estimated number of atoms in the universe, and equal to our number we chose above. That's quite a lot to bruteforce.
Lets s
Re:Uncrackable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ex: Election data encrypted and transmitted. You intercept it. If you the quickest you can decrypt, alter, re-encrypt and resend it, is 100 years after that election is concluded, how is it different from the algorithm being "uncrackable"?
I dont apply a time constraint to the usefulness algorithm alone, when thinking about security, I also have to apply it to the useful lifespan of the data. As
What? No "sky is falling predictions?!?!?" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What? No "sky is falling predictions?!?!?" (Score:2)
Because real security experts don't need to get people to panic to sell their security expertise. Marketing people who sell security products, OTOH, need to sell as much as possible.
It's not a paradox... (Score:5, Funny)
oblig. bash quote (Score:2)
Chaos? What chaos? (Score:2)
What prevents the user from getting pissed off at not getting the book and going on a shooting rampage in an apartment complex? That, my friend, would cause a lot of chaos.
Doing well on the SPAM problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, new spam filters can be pretty effective. But it takes a lot of resources to deal with spam in terms of hardware and network bandwidth. 75% of all e-mail traffic is SPAM. Millions upon millions a day.
SPAM is a real problem and it's not getting better, it's getting worse. The better we get at blocking it the more spam gets sent to counter this.
Some people might think that if we get good enough at blocking spam, it won't be profitable to send it anymore. I beg to differ. It costs almost nothing to send a million spams. And with all the bot-nets and hijacked mail servers, it's not hard to get them out.
So, because of this very brushed-off response and attitude like he's an authority, I can't take any of his other responses seriously.
Re:Doing well on the SPAM problem? (Score:2)
"Dear Mr. Schneider, just because you don't see the 500 people working in front of your house trying hard to secure the barrage doesn't mean that you have no problem with the high water levels."
And yes, I ran a mailserver too. Changed the job. No fun there.
His book "Secrets and Lies" though I found quite interesting and inspring. It helped me to see securitiy problems I didn't see before.
Re:Doing well on the SPAM problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
And how does this have anything to do with what Schneier said? Yes, extracting signal from noise is expensive, presents problems of diminishing returns and the cost/benefit doesn't favor an end to the problem any time soon. However, he's correct: as far as the average person is concerned, spam is a relatively solved problem.
I heard an interesting quote recently: "any problem that can be solved by throwing money at it is not a real problem." Spam is not a real problem. It's a complication, but not a problem. Does it raise the price of business communications? Yes. Is that a problem? Not really, it just changes the economics.
The real problem is that the people in the trenches who are the recipients of said money develop a sense that they are fighting some sort of holy war against an adversary that will one day be defeated. I have news for you: you are a machine that takes a noise source with weak signal in and produces an amplified version of the signal with some noise reduction. Noise is not evil, and signal will never be "pure".
Re:Doing well on the SPAM problem? (Score:2)
What the fuck is the deal with you fucktards trying to make it look like everyone that has real problems to deal with is fighting a "holy war"? I am a mail administrator for a large company, and I know more about the spam problem then you.
I mean, get off it.
There's more to the spam problem then warding off some porn e-mail. Spam and viruses are becomming less seperated. It costs any sizable company millions of dollars to keep it away and pay for dealing with it. There's legal implications if y
Re:Doing well on the SPAM problem? (Score:2)
I could not have asked for a more striking example of my point, thank you.
FWIW, I'm a mail administrator too, though I've moved away from the trenches recently.
My point is that mail adminstrators like us can lose sight of the fact that spam and email aren't seperate p
Well, in defense of Schneier's succinct responses (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean TCP/IP does not use crypto, while a VPN does. Do you think that in the future we'll use crypto for every type of communication?
Which displays a fairly simplistic, and unfortunately common, grasp of security principles, which is: crypto makes things secure, and everything must be secure. The reality is that cryptography is part of a greater security process, and that not every communication *must* be secure. Do you care if someone hears you discussing the newest Family Guy episode at the office, or hears you say "Hi" to your coworkers? No. So why should you be concerned if you're transmitting SYN/ACK or a comment to Slashdot in a relatively clear manner? Secure processes should be implemented where they are needed, and nowhere else, or else security becomes a burden forcing users to find ways to circumvent it.
Should we use crypto to stop the spam problem ?
I hardly know where to begin. How should we use cryptography to prevent spam? There are ways and ways to reduce spam, and perhaps cryptography in the form of some type of message authentication will play a role in that or not, but this is like asking "Should we use hydrogen molecules to cure cancer?". Hydrogen molecules in what context or construct?
I'm no cryptographer, but (call me crazy) I expect a guy writing for SecurityFocus to know more than I do. Or at least to ask questions in an intelligent manner.
Re:Well, in defense of Schneier's succinct respons (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, but sometimes not having every communication secure can cause an insecurity in another way.
1. The fact that some of your communications are encrypted/secured gives an observer the information that you are transmitting something secret/sensitive when that occurs. That in itself can be valuable knowledge. For example, if the Army normally sends messages unencry
Re:Well, in defense of Schneier's succinct respons (Score:2)
Obviously the interviewer didn't know much about crypto. His main focus was fear mongering about the NSA and break-ins. But Schneier seems to discount quantum cryptanalysis out of hand. Doesn't he realize that quantum programs have been written already to do factoring and list searches? It's just a matter of overcoming manufacturing/quality issues with qubit design.
Re:Well, in defense of Schneier's succinct respons (Score:3, Insightful)
That depends on how paranoid you are. If most of your messages are unencrypted, then the few encrypted ones stand out. Selective encryption is like putting a big sign on the encrypted messages telling eavesdroppers that they're worth listening to. If you
Oblig. bash.org quote (Score:5, Funny)
Cthon98: hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
Cthon98: ********* see!
AzureDiamond: hunter2
AzureDiamond: doesnt look like stars to me
Cthon98: AzureDiamond: *******
Cthon98: thats what I see
AzureDiamond: oh, really?
Cthon98: Absolutely
AzureDiamond: you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
AzureDiamond: haha, does that look funny to you?
Cthon98: lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
AzureDiamond: thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
Cthon98: yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
AzureDiamond: awesome!
AzureDiamond: wait, how do you know my pw?
Cthon98: er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
AzureDiamond: oh, ok.
for beginners? (Score:2)
Re:for beginners? (Score:2)
Re:for beginners? (Score:2)
Re:Take it all... (Score:4, Interesting)
Another analogy for you: Dave Clark once commented that using cryptography to communicate with a stranger is like meeting that stranger in a dark alley. Whatever happens, there won't be any witnesses.
I guess the lesson is to use the right tool for the right job. No dogma.
-Fzz
Reversible computing (Score:2)
Re:Take it all... (Score:2)
If instead of blowing away the charge that indicates a 1, you somehow moved the charge to a vacant holding area, the movement might take less energy than the negation. as mentioned, like moving the beads on an abucus, instead of moving pebbles in and out from a pile.
One simple method wou
Re:Take it all... (Score:2)
Re:Take it all... (Score:2)