Information Security 101 - the Rules of Thumb

Clive D.W. Feather clive at davros.org
Wed Jun 24 14:18:24 BST 2009


Peter Fairbrother said:
> Rule 4: Protect plaintext first, it's far more valuable to an enemy
> than ciphertext.

When I was in the Royal Signals we were taught the opposite: better to give
one piece of plaintext away than to make an encryption mistake that could
give away the entire key. (Trivial example: "attack now" gives the enemy 30
seconds warning. "GQ YO" followed by an attack 30 seconds later gives them
four characters of today's Slidex key.)

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
Email: clive at davros.org     | it will get its revenge.
Web: http://www.davros.org  |   - Henry Spencer
Mobile: +44 7973 377646



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