Cyphernomicon Index
Cyphernomicon 6.10

The Need For Strong Crypto:
Loose Ends


   6.10.1. "Why don't most people pay more attention to security
            issues?"
           - Fact is, most people never think about real security.
           - Safe manufacturers have said that improvements in safes
              (the metal kind) were driven by insurance rates. A direct
              incentive to spend more
              money to improve security (cost of better safe < cost of
              higher insurance rate).
           - Right now there is almost no economic incentive for people
              to worry
              about PIN security, about protecting their files, etc.
              (Banks eat the
              costs and pass them on...any bank which tried to save a few
              bucks in
              losses by requiring 10-digit PINs--which people would
              *write down*
              anyway!--would lose customers. Holograms and pictures on
              bank cards
              are happening because the costs have dropped enough.)
           - Crypto is economics. People will begin to really care when
              it costs them.
              
   6.10.2. What motivates an attackers is not the intrinsic value of the
            data but his perception of the value of the data.
   6.10.3. Crypto allows more refinement of permissions...access to
            groups, lists
           - beyond such crude methods as banning domain names or "edu"
              sorts of accounts
   6.10.4. these general reasons will make encryption more common, more
            socially and legally acceptable, and will hence make eventual
            attempts to limit the use of crypto anarchy methods moot
   6.10.5. protecting reading habits..
           - (Imagine using your MicroSoftCashCard for library
              checkouts...)
   6.10.6. Downsides
           - loss of trust
           - markets in unsavory things
           - espionage
           + expect to see new kinds of con jobs
             - confidence games
             - "Make Digital Money Fast"
   6.10.7. Encryption of Video Signals and Encryption to Control Piracy
           - this is of course a whole technology and industry
           - Videocypher II has been cracked by many video hackers
           - a whole cottage industry in cracking such cyphers
           - note that outlawing encryption would open up many
              industries to destruction by piracy, which is yet another
              reason a wholesale ban on encryption is doomed to failure


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