Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3386 - 3390 (2nd - 6th January 2017)
St.Clair:
--- Quote from: Morituri on 02 Jan 2017, 23:04 ---Most beautiful words anyone ever heard, if they want to break encryption. "A variant of".
Meaning somebody did their own crypto implementation, meaning unless they are a specialist they almost certainly got it wrong.
--- End quote ---
Well, that's good to hear. My worry, upon hearing that, was that it would be just different enough to foil the "usual" approaches/exploits, allowing the "auto-destruct" feature to kick in.
(And that may have actually been Jeph's narrative intent, depending (among other things) on his own knowledge of crypto, etc.)
On the gripping hand, it's possible that CW is (supposed to be) a specialist ... just in particular subjects and with history which, like Bubbles, make her either unemployable or not temperamentally inclined toward "legit" work. Mid-level career criminal or fellow product of government black project? Perhaps we'll find out.
Storel:
--- Quote from: Skewbrow on 03 Jan 2017, 06:25 ---Well. The PIN-code and the screenlock code (dunno what's it called in English) to my cell phone are 1416 and 26535 respectively. When I worked for Nokia, I was to select a PIN to operate the door at wee hours. I first asked for 3141 or 3142. Both were already taken :-)
--- End quote ---
Wasn't very secure for them to tell you they were already taken. Now if you ever wanted to pretend to be someone else using the door at wee hours, you had two other codes you could use.
Morituri:
--- Quote from: Akima on 03 Jan 2017, 00:51 ---I was all "Awww!", but then I thought: "How does Bubbles keep her lenses clean, and her eyelids lubricated when they close over them?" If she used the same trick as certain lizards, social interaction would be difficult.
--- End quote ---
"No, honestly, humans don't cut their eyelashes, their eyelashes are just naturally that short. Don't ask me how they keep their faces clean; many of them don't."
If anyone can identify the quote you win a tasty, tasty biscuit.
Cameras and lights on some military all-terrain vehicles are mounted inside a rotating, hemispherical (usually bullet resistant) plexiglass housing, with a fixed helical "wiper" (and usually a spray nozzle that can be turned on) to wash/wipe crud off the housing as it rotates under the wiper. Bubbles' eyes could be the same sort of system, with the cleaning and lubrication system mounted inside her head.
Morituri:
--- Quote from: Skewbrow on 03 Jan 2017, 05:20 ---
Anyway, in theory it is possible to design a cryptosystem that is mathematically secure, i.e. one that not even Station with his considerable computational power cannot crack. But (what I learned from the engineers), there will often be various and sundry implementation attacks (depending on the application, and what the attacker has access to). If you google up "Implementation attack", you will find stuff about how a password to, say a smartcard, may be vulnerable if you can measure the chip's power consumption or time it when running.
--- End quote ---
For starters, the unencrypted form probably still exists on a server somewhere accessible to military and intel brass. Military vehicles mount cameras and audio recorders, and that data gets analyzed and archived. I've no reason to suppose they wouldn't do the same to Bubbles' sensory memories. Soldiers have no right to privacy which affects that, but citizens, once they've mustered out, do have FOIA access to it provided that it's stuff they saw in person first.
As an American citizen she has the right to make an FOIA request for those recordings. If she had it when she mustered out, she has a right to know, so the FOIA request would be approved unless someone is deliberately breaking the law. Which, admittedly, they might likely do, but no matter what, refusing it if she has a right to know would still be breaking the law. Someone making the decision might not choose to risk his own ass in order to cover the ass of someone else who made illegal decisions.
ObCrypto, People will find even more stuff by searching on "Side Channel Attack."
Did you know that when you're doing math on large numbers, most math libraries will use an algorithm that allows an observer who can time the operation to drastically narrow down their guesses as to what number it was? And one who can measure power consumption at the same time to narrow it down to within a few dozen guesses? Did you know that numbers particularly vulnerable to this used to be PREFERRED as the factors in key exchanges and RSA encryption, and that people have demonstrated the ability to pick up the needed timing/power information from recordings of bluetooth networks in the area when the operation was done? Did you know that a major linux distribution spent YEARS failing to initialize their random-number generator correctly, and people would get 256-bit keys (secure until the last star dies!) that had only 64-bit security (secure until about thursday afternoon)? Did you know that your smartphone can be used to covertly get a recording of you typing a password or key? And that given the recording, even if it's audio only, it's REALLY REALLY easy to get the password or key? Hell, if Bubbles *heard* CW typing the key or passphrase, and has recorded audio, it can be recovered.
Case:
--- Quote from: Skewbrow on 03 Jan 2017, 05:20 ---I don't think I qualify for a crypto nerd. I am just a math guy who had reason to get somewhat familiarized with the algebra side of crypto (Read: I have served as the external examiner in one math PhD dissertation on some point of elliptic curve crypto). Also I once was the algebra guy in one crypto project our math department ran together with a couple of engineers from various companies.
--- End quote ---
Had a quick look at elliptic curves: Fascinating subject, but it went quickly over my head -> I have the standard physicist training in analysis and (linear) algebra and am familiar with elliptic integrals, complex analysis and elliptic functions (to a degree), though my 'mathematical horizon' is pretty much Lie-groups/algebras (and my bag of 'what I picked up along the way' usual for physicist). :-\ Pretty much the "It's neither differentiable, nor combinatorics, so why bother?"-attitude to 'discrete stuff'. Guess that was a bit ... premature. :-P
Seems rather close to Andrew Wiles famous work? And if I understand correctly, Shor's algorithm wouldn't help(?), so even if Station had quantum computational capacities, it wouldn't be able to brute-force elliptic curve crypto?
EDIT: Just saw that Shor also had a second algorithm for discrete logarithms?
--- Quote from: Storel on 03 Jan 2017, 07:16 ---
--- Quote from: Skewbrow on 03 Jan 2017, 06:25 ---Well. The PIN-code and the screenlock code (dunno what's it called in English) to my cell phone are 1416 and 26535 respectively. When I worked for Nokia, I was to select a PIN to operate the door at wee hours. I first asked for 3141 or 3142. Both were already taken :-)
--- End quote ---
Wasn't very secure for them to tell you they were already taken. Now if you ever wanted to pretend to be someone else using the door at wee hours, you had two other codes you could use.
--- End quote ---
Hmmmh, I'd rather suspect that, with Nokia being a geek-factory, somebody told building-security to disable 3141(2), play a well-known tune for 1701 and award style-points for 2718 :laugh:
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version