BBC news spread Ranum's Law

[Owen Lewis]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]On Behalf Of Brian Gladman
> Sent: 21 September 2001 20:19
> To: UK Crypto Posting
> Subject: Re: BBC news spread Ranum's Law
>
>
> From: <lists@notatla.demon.co.uk>
> To: <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 7:14 PM
> Subject: BBC news spread Ranum's Law
>
> >
> >    "We are all focusing on this as a very hi-tech war, whereas the
> >    terrorists are using very low-tech means," said Brian Gladman, former
> >    technical director at Nato, and now an advisor to the net thinktank
> >    the Foundation for Information Policy Research (Fipr).
>
> I might add that I made the quote "There's so little encryption
> going across
> the net that any that is used stands out like a sore thumb" in the context
> of a discussion of its use on email.


Whilst this is true for the product of encryption programs such as PGP used
'out of the box', why should it be so be so otherwise? Apart from stego, as
has been commented here before, the use of a bland wrapper such as a
compression utility would cure the 'sore thumb' syndrome. Further, even
without the camouflage of a wrapper, provided that there is no identifying
header or other flag, these days there are so many proprietary file types
that the workload in sifting out with a very high degree of certainty any
enciphered attachment seems daunting.

The thought on hi-tech/lo-tech in warfare bears some reflection. Sometimes
things are not always quite as they seem at first glance. Take the Mongol
invasions of Europe in the 12th Cent. The Mongol hordes, armed mainly with a
short reflex bow, lived off mare's milk and blood and travelled only in
small bands only so that there was always sufficient forage for their
horses. The European armies were larger, better fed, better armed, had
physically stronger soldiers and a reasonably developed battle doctrine.
Technically, they were more advanced. Yet the Mongols were invincible and
smashed every European army that stood against them. The reasons for this
seeming anomaly bear reflecting on today. In very brief summary, Mongol
superiority in battle was derived from the following:

		- Careful and extensive strategic intelligence, developed over long
periods in a relatively open society and supported by substantially
undetectable communications.

		- A system of tactical communications that enabled them to concentrate
their small bands with bewildering speed to produce an overwhelming
superiority of force at critical points. There was equally rapid dispersal
after an attack to present no substantial target for any pursuit.

		- Total ferocity, against armies and civil population alike, designed to
instil terror and demoralise. On the battle field the order often was to
leave just one man alive and relatively unscathed so that he might recount
the slaughter of all the others.


The nut of this is that the Mongols used assiduously gathered information
and superior communications to allow strongly motivated men to strike
successfully at will and with the greatest flexibility in manoeuvre.

The Europeans never defeated the Mongols until, some 400 years later, the
development of reasonable firearms allowed Peter the Great to crush the
Golden Horde. I.e. Technology won in the end. Had the Europeans understood
and adopted the battle winning techniques of the Mongols, there is evidence
that they would have been defeated hundreds of hears earlier. That evidence
is provided by the Egyptians who were the only Western army to defeat a
horde in battle and turn back an invasion before the advent of firearms.
They did this by buying the services of a few Mongol generals to explain the
Mongol methods of war and then to train the Egyptian armies to counter them.

Returning to the present, in any event, its hard to think of a large jet
aircraft as a lo-tech weapon. Unusual and innovative, I'll grant you. The
lo-tech idea mainly gains force when applied to intelligence gathering. Here
the contrast is between the relative openness (to both movement and access
to information) in Western society and the substantially close society from
which springs Al Quaida and the others. The basis on which the two sides can
operate is so different as to allow no meaningful comparison. In this, the
use of superior technology (backed with determination and intellect) may
well turn the balance of advantage, a sharp lesson having been delivered
that any advantage must be earned and not simply assumed.

Owen