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Smokeskin
Say what? How come these guys get it? And why aren't they just using tight-beam microwave?
LurkerOutThere
Because their the ruling body for the entire world with unlimited money to spend?

Addendum: I should be more specific and say I've been kind of piecemealing my way through corp guide and haven't gotten to the section in question. They give an example of a ZO base station in uniwired and it's the scariest system detailed in the book by a safe margin.


Addendum:
For my part hacking the ZO is going to be an epic run, we're talking people in the Fastjack league backed up by a further world class team of speacilists to actually get them access. Even then it's questionable what they could get access to. Although just getting a hack into the ZO would probly net you pay data or banking info to make the trip worth it.
Smokeskin
QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Jul 29 2010, 02:56 PM) *
Because their the ruling body for the entire world with unlimited money to spend?


And that allows them to do the mathematically impossible?
TommyTwoToes
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jul 29 2010, 09:13 AM) *
And that allows them to do the mathematically impossible?

They use plotion encryption. The plot says they need it, so they have it.

Move along, nothing to see here citizen, move along....
Smokeskin
QUOTE (TommyTwoToes @ Jul 29 2010, 03:16 PM) *
They use plotion encryption. The plot says they need it, so they have it.


Oh yeah of course.

Sort of like the inverse of why everyone else can't use one-time pads for encryption - that setting needs it for hackers to be useful, so they can't have it.

Ok, in my game, ZO Habitat uses tightbeam microwave comms, and yes their redhot sensors will spot whatever you're trying to sneak in there. Just like how XORing with long random strings causes chaos sprites to appear and garble it all up. Fucking technomancers.
Johnny B. Good
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jul 29 2010, 01:41 PM) *
Fucking technomancers.


In know right?
I heard they eat bank accounts and drink firewalls.
Karoline
QUOTE (Johnny B. Good @ Jul 29 2010, 09:33 AM) *
In know right?
I heard they eat bank accounts and drink firewalls.


Mmmm, firewalls, goes down smooth.

That aside, there is specific mention in Unwired that there are various kinds of encryption. The most common kind (found on 99.9% of stuff) is fairly easy to crack. There are however other forms of encryption that could take much longer to crack, but aren't used often because it makes the data difficult to access even for those intended to be allowed to access it. I would guess that whatever they do on that space station is so important, that they're willing to go through the absurd difficulties associated with the highest level of encryption, which likely includes running the passkeys around physically, and hours/days of (authorized) encrypt/decrypt time on the data.
Traul
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jul 29 2010, 03:41 PM) *
Sort of like the inverse of why everyone else can't use one-time pads for encryption - that setting needs it for hackers to be useful, so they can't have it.

Same reason as why one time pads are not in use nowadays: how do you share the pad?
Karoline
QUOTE (Traul @ Jul 29 2010, 10:23 AM) *
Same reason as why one time pads are not in use nowadays: how do you share the pad?

Even back in the Cold War one time pads were too much hassle for the CIA (and others) to use even on its most secure communications. Russia made use of it from my understanding though.

To use a one time pad the message must be (hand) encoded using a big page of switcharoos, this could literally take hours for even a fairly short message. The message was then encoded (again) and sent to whoever. Whoever would then have to do a standard decode to get the one time encoded message, which included a pad number. Whoever would then have to look through their stacks of pads to find that particular pad, then spend hours decoding the message. I'm not sure if the pad was burned (With a witness) at this point, or if they were two part ordeals that included another code for the return message. Either way they were burned and required a witness to the burning (and a destruction of the ashes). So, after a few hours and alot of pain in the ass, you managed to get one message through. Very very slow, and generally communication needed to be faster than that to be effective.

So yeah, one time pads aren't used in SR because no one wants to spend half an hour to decode "Hi, how are you doing today?", and no one wants to have to carry around massive stacks of pads so that they can send and receive stuff. Keep in mind you really can't do any of this digitally, because if you do, then the pad might get hacked, making the entire effort worthless.
IcyCool
QUOTE (Karoline @ Jul 29 2010, 04:32 PM) *
So yeah, one time pads aren't used in SR because no one wants to spend half an hour to decode "Hi, how are you doing today?", and no one wants to have to carry around massive stacks of pads so that they can send and receive stuff. Keep in mind you really can't do any of this digitally, because if you do, then the pad might get hacked, making the entire effort worthless.


That's ... not entirely true. There are electronic variations of one-time pads for secure access and communication. You may have seen them, they are about the size of a credit card, and at set time intervals they generate a string of characters that you use as your access key (which is used to encrypt your data). The only effort required by this method is to enter that string as the seed for your encryption. We have come quite a long way from the pencil and paper one-time pad.

Now it is true that unless you are communicating with another person who has the companion card, that the receiving end would have the software that generates the companion key. In that latter case, a hacker could get the algorithm that generates the digital one-time pad from the server, and then that pair would be un-secure. But in the case of two companion cards which don't wire-lessly broadcast anything, that would be absolutely as secure as a regular one-time pad (i.e. Someone would have to steal a card, or gain access to the card to copy that card's key generation algorithm).

Edit - It's worth noting that with a digital pad, your transmission could be intercepted and copied, which means that eventually a hacker would be able to break your encryption by brute force, which takes time. But by the time said message is cracked, the content could be very old (weeks, if not months), and the users will already have moved on to another one-time key. If a hacker intercepted enough encoded messages, brute forced the encryption on them and analyzed the keys used to encrypt them, it's possible that the hacker might be able to duplicate the key generating algorithm. That's alleviated by using multiple key-generators, but still worth considering.

So I guess it's entirely possible that digital one-time pads could be represented in Shadowrun by high rating encryption. It's not impossible to break, but a nova-hot decker with some seriously SotA decryption software might be able to do it in a reasonable amount of time. After all, it's not like the world of computer security is very detailed in Shadowrun, quite often such things are abstracted as a rating 6 Decrypt program.
sabs
You mean key FOBs?

They already have that level of encryption/access. But you're still running softwaer, and if you can capture the data, you can work on decrypting it.

Still, the whole Shadowrun world works on the idea that decryption tech has outstripped encryption tech. Which is the opposite of our world today.
Karoline
Yeah, my dad actually has to make use of those now (He used to use something very similar to a one time pad, but instead it was a one day pad). You still have a problem of: if a computer is doing the encryption/decryption, then the hacker could get access to that computer and get the key generator. Unless of course the work and encryption and decryption is all done on separate computers that aren't on the matrix at all.

But you are right, it is all abstracted. Maybe that level of security is a rating 6 encrypt program, and it is just a mark of how far decryption has come (Something which SR constantly pounds home) that even something like that only takes a few moments to break. I mean commlinks after all have an unspecified but absurdly huge amount of processing power, so maybe they can just brute force hack that quickly.
IcyCool
QUOTE (sabs @ Jul 29 2010, 04:50 PM) *
You mean key FOBs?

They already have that level of encryption/access. But you're still running softwaer, and if you can capture the data, you can work on decrypting it.

Still, the whole Shadowrun world works on the idea that decryption tech has outstripped encryption tech. Which is the opposite of our world today.


See my edit above, I think it went in after your post.

If by key FOBs you mean these, then yes.

At any rate, given that, in Shadowrun, Encryption isn't unbreakable, just weak or really strong, I would gather that by the 2070's, some brilliant mathematician has discovered a way to derive a "random" string of numbers through some mathemagic.

The only real exception is the security on Zurich Orbital. Maybe they've got some brilliant brain in a jar up there who is manually generating one-time pads.
sabs
yes, those are Security FOBS.

Maybe ZO is running real time synchronized modulating encryption on their signals.
Using specialized hardware linked to their dish arrays.

The system still needs to be useable though.
But if everyone connecting to the ZO Nodes has to have a special commlink module?

Like say a ZO Encryption Module.

That module has special hardwired circuitry that handles synchronized modulating encryption, and security.
If you attempt to connect to ZO's node without said module, then your connection gets immediately terminated, no questions asked. Try multiple times and we fry your commlink. Try more than that, and we fry you. After all, if you're authorized to be in the system, you're probably running cold sim. So you're mostly safe.

suoq
[not serious]
Actually, they don't really use encryption. They use [carl sagan]billions upon billions[/carl sagan] of tiny courier sprites. These sprites are all connected to a giant internal Resonance Mesh. They do send a lot of normal traffic but that network is really just a lot of honeypots sending random gibberish. The traffic network is necessary because if the didn't have a network passing tons of data people would start wondering how they really did business and would start looking deeper into resonance links and sprites.
[/not serious]
Traul
QUOTE (IcyCool @ Jul 29 2010, 05:44 PM) *
That's ... not entirely true. There are electronic variations of one-time pads for secure access and communication. You may have seen them, they are about the size of a credit card, and at set time intervals they generate a string of characters that you use as your access key (which is used to encrypt your data). The only effort required by this method is to enter that string as the seed for your encryption. We have come quite a long way from the pencil and paper one-time pad.

Now it is true that unless you are communicating with another person who has the companion card, that the receiving end would have the software that generates the companion key. In that latter case, a hacker could get the algorithm that generates the digital one-time pad from the server, and then that pair would be un-secure. But in the case of two companion cards which don't wire-lessly broadcast anything, that would be absolutely as secure as a regular one-time pad (i.e. Someone would have to steal a card, or gain access to the card to copy that card's key generation algorithm).


This is known as one time password, not one time pad. I know, it does not help that the acronym is the same wobble.gif It is not nearly as safe as one time pad. Here, "one time" does not mean that the password or the encrypted date cannot be recovered, but that even if it is recovered, an attacker cannot use it to guess the next one. To ensure this, the devices still need to hold only a finite number of passwords: if they were able to generate the N+1 password form the N, then an attacker could do the same. What they usually do is work backwards: decide the number of passwords to generate then derive the N password from the N+1. Then guessing the N+1 password form the N one is essentially decrypting the generation function. These functions are considered sure nowadays, but how about the SR setting?
suoq
On a more serious note, security can be thought of as having three categories.

1) Something you have. (Key)
2) Something you know. (Password)
3) Something you are. (Fingerprint)

However, in shadowrun, it should be possible to add a 4th level of security

4) Something you cast.

(Which has the nice side effect of making a H.A.C.K. acronym. "Have, are, cast, know".)

Security based on Magic really hasn't appeared in Shadowrun (at least as far as I can think of). The first group to devote a lot of resources in secret to it is going to have a huge security advantage. That may be what Zurich Orbital has done.
hobgoblin
before the late 90s, USA considered anything above 64-bit (or there about) encryption weapon grade under export laws. So when someone put a 128-bit encryption system online for free download, they dragged him to court.

Basically, SR computing is as if the EFF, the FSF and a whole lot of others never existed (or got marginalized by government and corp by various means). Thats on top of the whole crash 1.0 thing, that the corps supposedly used to introduce a whole different computer design paradigm. One that fitted their interests more closely (masking chips in SR1-3 was a "go directly to jail" offense. i am surprised that some SR4 software is not F grade).

thats on top of the SR1-3 matrix had design elements more in common with the phone system then the internet (if one read *TG's as phone switches more then internet routers).
IcyCool
QUOTE (Traul @ Jul 29 2010, 04:22 PM) *
This is known as one time password, not one time pad. I know, it does not help that the acronym is the same wobble.gif It is not nearly as safe as one time pad.


Well, yes, but if the "password" string was used to encrypt the message, this would be functionally identical to a one-time pad. And I could swear I saw just such an application of this somewhere, but my memory and google-fu are failing me, so I won't push that aspect any further.

At any rate, Shadowrun doesn't really go that in-depth into security, thankfully. It just abstracts things out.

suoq's suggestion of somehow incorporating magic into tech security is interesting though. Maybe some sort of encrypted summoning formula that, when used, summons up a spirit that provides the relevant data, as long as the individuals summoning fit a certain assensing profile? That would be a really limited use though. How might it be used to provide a more secure, and generalized, security?
Ancient History
The answer, unfortunately, is a small abomination called an "alchemical passkey." Like most of y'all's questions, comments, concerns, kvetchings, and queries, the details are pretty much all in Unwired.
Traul
QUOTE (IcyCool @ Jul 29 2010, 07:06 PM) *
Well, yes, but if the "password" string was used to encrypt the message, this would be functionally identical to a one-time pad. And I could swear I saw just such an application of this somewhere, but my memory and google-fu are failing me, so I won't push that aspect any further.

1) If the password is shorter than the message it encrypts, then the encryption of one message is not as strong as a one time pad.
2) If the sequence of passwords is not purely random, then the system as a whole is not as safe as a one time pad.
3) If the sequence of passwords is purely random and each password is as long as the message it encrypts, then it IS a one-time pad, with all the defaults. Soon you run out of pads.
Dumori
QUOTE (IcyCool @ Jul 29 2010, 04:44 PM) *
Edit - It's worth noting that with a digital pad, your transmission could be intercepted and copied, which means that eventually a hacker would be able to break your encryption by brute force, which takes time. But by the time said message is cracked, the content could be very old (weeks, if not months), and the users will already have moved on to another one-time key. If a hacker intercepted enough encoded messages, brute forced the encryption on them and analyzed the keys used to encrypt them, it's possible that the hacker might be able to duplicate the key generating algorithm. That's alleviated by using multiple key-generators, but still worth considering..

And if your luck they may decrypt a message you dint put there that dosen't effect your plans. Brute frocing a one time pad is annoying for that reason. You have to get every possible decryption to be sure you've go the right message. Currently that could take forever and aday. In SR the expernetal nature of IT delveopment could drop that by alot but large one time pad files could still be horrific to brute force.
Doc Chase
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jul 29 2010, 01:18 PM) *
Say what? How come these guys get it? And why aren't they just using tight-beam microwave?


I thought Corp Guide said they used multiple comm sats to transmit, and the other sats transmit garbage - like Disney tunes - but it wasn't unbreakable. Just very difficult.
Smokeskin
QUOTE (Karoline @ Jul 29 2010, 05:32 PM) *
Even back in the Cold War one time pads were too much hassle for the CIA (and others) to use even on its most secure communications. Russia made use of it from my understanding though.

To use a one time pad the message must be (hand) encoded using a big page of switcharoos, this could literally take hours for even a fairly short message. The message was then encoded (again) and sent to whoever. Whoever would then have to do a standard decode to get the one time encoded message, which included a pad number. Whoever would then have to look through their stacks of pads to find that particular pad, then spend hours decoding the message. I'm not sure if the pad was burned (With a witness) at this point, or if they were two part ordeals that included another code for the return message. Either way they were burned and required a witness to the burning (and a destruction of the ashes). So, after a few hours and alot of pain in the ass, you managed to get one message through. Very very slow, and generally communication needed to be faster than that to be effective.

So yeah, one time pads aren't used in SR because no one wants to spend half an hour to decode "Hi, how are you doing today?", and no one wants to have to carry around massive stacks of pads so that they can send and receive stuff. Keep in mind you really can't do any of this digitally, because if you do, then the pad might get hacked, making the entire effort worthless.


Look, in the age of computers, you don't have to do any of this by hand. You don't have to carry around "stacks of pads". You just both have the same copy of very long random string. It is very easy and computationally A LOT faster than any other type of encryption.

Storage isn't a problem either. Want to encrypt the video feed from a drone? A one-time pad that takes up as much space as 100 hours of video (totally insignificant in SR4) allows for 100 hours of video to be transmitted securely.

Exchanging keys? Not a problem either. For drones, you exchange them when they refuel/recharge. Teams exchange OTPs when during mission briefing. Etc. Arguing that we now think it is too much hassle doesn't hold - today we have solid alternatives, in SR4 you either go through the absolutely minor hassle of exchanging OTPs, or you suffer totally unsecure comms.

Afraid of someone on your team getting hacked and the OTP gets stolen? That will only happen if his system accepts non-encrypted channels, which of course they're set to not allow. Any hostile commands doesn't have the proper OTP encoding so it is garbled. And if someone should manage it anyway - well, you're really no worse off than you are today anyway.

There is absolutely no reason why cops, security teams, shadowrunners etc. wouldn't use OTPs - it is very simple, and it gives unbreakable comms.

If you want to talk about standard, long range communication, then a 3rd party OTP provider could solve this. This provider sells sealed data chips with OTPs on it. I want to send a message to Eve, I encode my message with the OTP and sends it to provider along with Eve's ID. They then decrypt it with my OTP, encrypt it with Eve's OTP, and sends it to Eve. If we're feeling really paranoid, Eve and I could encrypt the message normally first. So, you ask, doesn't this require a lot of trust in the provider? No, not anymore than you already trust all the owners of all the nodes your data goes through. This is a risk you're already living with. The only risk here is if someone manages to break into the provider, but for one, the entire world would rely on encryption from these providers and you can bet the only ones in business are the ones with the hottest matrix security available. Secondly, even if someone managed to do it, then do you think the guys who did that are the ones who want to listen to your comms, are you that important? And if that one group happens to be the ones on your tail, ok then that one group can do to you what everyone can do to you if you weren't using the OTP provider. Even the hottest datasteal on the planet wouldn't make you worse off than you already are.


Bottom line is, OTPs will allow for near perfect encryption. You can handwave it away, or you can make something up that explains why OTPs aren't in use. I thought, hey this is shadowrun, its magic! Random strings attract things from the resonance realms that screw operations with them up, problem solved.
suoq
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Jul 29 2010, 11:16 AM) *
The answer, unfortunately, is a small abomination called an "alchemical passkey." Like most of y'all's questions, comments, concerns, kvetchings, and queries, the details are pretty much all in Unwired.

Ok. I've read it and re-read it. What does it answer and why is it even an improvement? Sure, the device where it's used needs to be able to read the alchemical passkey but since it appear to be sending regular digital data I don't see how that, in any way, bothers a hacker spoofing the terminal id or a technomancer. Perhaps both devices are also communicating magically but the lack of an astral presence makes that hard to believe.

Maybe you know what makes it secure, but reading it, I sure can't figure it out.
Orcus Blackweather
I think that the thing that makes ZO so scary to my mind, is that if I am good enough to hack them, they can afford to pay me a lot to work for them. My Resonance 8 TM with 7 submergence grades can easily make multiple millions a year working for them, and easily avoid all those pesky gunshot wounds that you get for working against them. I would just assume that whoever is trying to hack them will face spiders on the inside that are at least as good with the home field advantage to go with it. Really no need for Plotian encryption and uber hardware, just match the character with unlimited money and go on with business.
suoq
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jul 29 2010, 12:29 PM) *
That will only happen if his system accepts non-encrypted channels, which of course they're set to not allow. Any hostile commands doesn't have the proper OTP encoding so it is garbled.


Brute force large amounts of short commands garbled. Number of possible legitimate commands of that length vs the minimum length of a command that can be sent is pretty much your odds of one of your brute force packets being verified and therefore the one computer advancing forward on it's one time pad.

Once one system's one time pad has advanced, the two nodes aren't going to get in sync again easily. Effectively these two systems are as cut off as the hacker and original system are.

[Fluff]Post-Crash, the goal was to have systems that worked to remain in contact with each other. To this end, metahumanity has adopted encryption schemes that allow broken connections to easily self-repair. This leaves them open to hacking (much like a locked car door can be opened by breaking a window) but it also allows the connection to continue to work afterwards.[/Fluff]

Note: When people say that OTPs are unbreakable, what they mean is that the code, properly used, cannot be broken. That being said, the use of a OTP relies on both parties being on the same key at the same time. Once a hacker disrupts that process the OTP connection is effectively broken. When this happens, all the advantages of a OTP suddenly become serious disadvantages towards getting the system running again. If a hacker wants to get more control instead of just crashing the system, he creates or fakes a OTP breakage and then attempts to (for lack of a better term) socially engineer his way into being the other half of the connection. A metaphor for this was when some spies were turned by the OSS during WWII. Instead of shutting down the network, they kept it running, only the OSS told the spies what messages to send. They were a trusted source suddenly carrying a lot of misinformation.
KarmaInferno
QUOTE (IcyCool @ Jul 29 2010, 11:02 AM) *
If by key FOBs you mean these, then yes.


Heck, I use a SecurID key fob just to log into World of Warcraft.



-karma
IceKatze
hi hi

Encryption in Shadowrun is weak and it would seem that One Time Pads don't exist, which is fine for the setting because hackers need to have something to do.

One Time Pads are literally unbreakable by the way. The only way to decode a transmission using a OTP is if you have managed to steal a copy of the pad. Without the pad, the transmission is literally random data. Not "looks like", it is random. The data exists only in the correlations between the transmission and the previously prepared pad, there is nothing in the transmission on its own to brute force. A 1024-bit message could be any of the 2^1024 possible messages that fit in that space, and there is absolutely no way to narrow it down further.

If the pad shorter than the message/reused at any point, then it is actually basic running key cypher, which isn't nearly as impossible to crack. However, 1 TB of pad consumed at 1 MB/s will last for 12 days (and storage space in SR could easily allow for much greater quantities of stored pad). Computers using an atomic interaction or radioactive decay sensor are able to generate numbers that are quite possible the most random numbers generated by any man or machine. You can't just grab a copy of the algorithm either, because the physical conditions that were sensed at the time the PAD was made will no longer exist.

So basically, if Zurich Orbital had a huge One Time Pad that was brought down to Earth on a shuttle every week/month/year, then outside of someone stealing their own copy, it would be literally and mathematically impossible to break.

However, I'm fine with OTPs not existing because it makes hacking a lot less fun. So you might as well just say "it is magic."
Traul
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jul 29 2010, 08:29 PM) *
Look, in the age of computers, you don't have to do any of this by hand. You don't have to carry around "stacks of pads". You just both have the same copy of very long random string. It is very easy and computationally A LOT faster than any other type of encryption.

It is all but easy: pseudo-random generators only work for short series. On the long term, their deterministic behaviour appears. One of the reasons why ZO is unhackable might be because they have access to a high-rate quantic random generator to provide such long pads.

QUOTE
Storage isn't a problem either. Want to encrypt the video feed from a drone? A one-time pad that takes up as much space as 100 hours of video (totally insignificant in SR4) allows for 100 hours of video to be transmitted securely.

Except we are not only talking about video here, but simsense, tacnet, smarlinks,... No one has any idea of how much bitrate this takes. Storage is infinite, but so are communication rates. You are pitting two infinites against each other, deciding which one wins, then you start bitching about it.
IceKatze
hi hi

I'll admit that I had a hard time comprehending how one time pads worked when the concept was first explained to me, and there are very good reasons why they are not commonly used today, mostly in the difficulty of exchanging pads and the overall susceptibility of human beings to social engineering. Really, I'm only arguing the point in an attempt to be informative, cause regardless of all the arguing, there are no rules for them in SR.

QUOTE
Storage is infinite, but so are communication rates.
One Time Pads don't require transmitting any more data than the transmission would normally require. Storage may be infinite, or at least too large to keep track of, but communication rates most certainly are not. They even have a stat for it, it is called Response.
Doc Chase
I thought the ZO was unhackable not only because of heavy encryption, but because of the transmission shell game they play with a dozen or so commsats.
Traul
QUOTE (IceKatze @ Jul 29 2010, 09:10 PM) *
One Time Pads don't require transmitting any more data than the transmission would normally require. Storage may be infinite, or at least too large to keep track of, but communication rates most certainly are not. They even have a stat for it, it is called Response.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Storage is the limit to the size of the pad. Communication bitrate is also the speed at which you burn through your pads. So OTP will only be a practical solution if if the storage is vastly (you still need to use your commlink...) bigger than the bitrate times the time you want to run the pad. I don't see any hint on why it should be the case.
kzt
QUOTE (Dumori @ Jul 29 2010, 10:55 AM) *
And if your luck they may decrypt a message you dint put there that dosen't effect your plans. Brute frocing a one time pad is annoying for that reason. You have to get every possible decryption to be sure you've go the right message. Currently that could take forever and aday. In SR the expernetal nature of IT delveopment could drop that by alot but large one time pad files could still be horrific to brute force.

No, you can't. Every possible message is equally possible as an outcome. Really. Not kidding. It's mathematically provable.

OTP has lots of defects, but that isn't one.
kzt
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jul 29 2010, 11:29 AM) *
Exchanging keys? Not a problem either. For drones, you exchange them when they refuel/recharge. Teams exchange OTPs when during mission briefing. Etc. Arguing that we now think it is too much hassle doesn't hold - today we have solid alternatives, in SR4 you either go through the absolutely minor hassle of exchanging OTPs, or you suffer totally unsecure comms.

It's still a huge issue.

EVERYONE you might talk to needs needs to have a set of pads that you have and they need to be unique to avoid accidental reuse.

You need a enough pads per destination and a mechanism that you can change pads and resynch after a bit drop error.

And it doesn't scale. How does Ares generate and distribute pads to the ten+ million people who work for it?
Doc Chase
QUOTE (kzt @ Jul 29 2010, 08:27 PM) *
It's still a huge issue.

EVERYONE you might talk to needs needs to have a set of pads that you have and they need to be unique to avoid accidental reuse.

You need a enough pads per destination and a mechanism that you can change pads and resynch after a bit drop error.

And it doesn't scale. How does Ares generate and distribute pads to the ten million people who work for it?



They don't. The only 'unhackable' station is ZO. Pads could be created for the Corporate Court members and the executive heads of each corporation for secured communication. The heads then distribute the information they get as necessary - which usually involves a closed-door meeting with the rest of the board on what their Justice had to say. Corp Guide fluff suggests this isn't the case.
sabs
And if there are 10+ million pads out there, why can't I steal one?
Or do a hardware dupe on it.

Pads work for spies, and small group communications.
They don't work for mass encrypting communications.
IceKatze
hi hi

Traul: Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Storage space is vastly outpacing transmission bandwidth. Running 100 Megabit wireless nonstop for 24 hours will only require about 1.03 terabytes of disk space. The average commlink undoubtedly has more than enough room for a team of 4-5 Shadowrunners for the duration of most runs.

QUOTE
And if there are 10+ million pads out there, why can't I steal one?
You can, just hope you stole the right one, cause no two pair are going to be the same.
sabs
Then OTP's are useless for most Corporate needs.

Corporations need a One to Many encryption scheme, not a One to One encryption scheme.
Heath Robinson
QUOTE (sabs @ Jul 29 2010, 08:49 PM) *
Then OTP's are useless for most Corporate needs.

Corporations need a One to Many encryption scheme, not a One to One encryption scheme.

Funnily enough, the wires that make up the internet that you're using to post are one-to-one communication schemes.
Doc Chase
QUOTE (sabs @ Jul 29 2010, 08:49 PM) *
Then OTP's are useless for most Corporate needs.

Corporations need a One to Many encryption scheme, not a One to One encryption scheme.


Again, no they don't. They can use a One to One just fine, and the receiver can distribute the information to those who need it. Since you're talking highly sensitive stuff, it's going to someone high up in the company, and he's going to be sharing it face-to-face in a closed-door session with the Board.
sabs
QUOTE (Heath Robinson @ Jul 29 2010, 08:52 PM) *
Funnily enough, the wires that make up the internet that you're using to post are one-to-one communication schemes.


Except this communication is not encrypted smile.gif
And if it was encrypted, it woudl not be 1 to 1.

Because You, me, and everyone else who was reading it would have to decrypt it somehow. How? by having a key to decrypt it.
Many have to be able to decrypt what One encrypted.
Heath Robinson
QUOTE (sabs @ Jul 29 2010, 08:58 PM) *
Except this communication is not encrypted smile.gif
And if it was encrypted, it woudl not be 1 to 1.

Because You, me, and everyone else who was reading it would have to decrypt it somehow. How? by having a key to decrypt it.
Many have to be able to decrypt what One encrypted.

A one-to-one encryption system is a one-to-one communication system. Put data in one end, it comes out the other end and only the other end. Like a wire.
sabs
QUOTE (Heath Robinson @ Jul 29 2010, 08:37 PM) *
A one-to-one encryption system is a one-to-one communication system. Put data in one end, it comes out the other end and only the other end. Like a wire.


I know that.

But you can have a one to many encryptions system.
SSL works this way.
Private/Public Key systems.

in the OTP system, in order to decrypt the information encrypted by Pad 1, you MUST have Pad 2. You can only communicate between two people. For a corporate setting, this is rarely the desired result. Corporations want to be able to encrypt their data once, and have multiple people be able to read it.

OTP systems would not work for trading financial information between ZO and the rest of the financial institutions in the world.
Might an OTP system exist in shadowrun, yes. Would it be used? Rarely. Shadowrunners would actually be the most likely people to use OTP systems.

Johnson uses Pad 1 to encrypt something.
Johnson hires team one to deliver Pad 2 to X.
Johnson hires team two to deliver the encrypted data to X.

Corporations are not going to be encrypting the research data inside their top secret research facility using an OTP system. It makes no sense, and is completely impractical.
suoq
QUOTE (sabs @ Jul 29 2010, 01:58 PM) *
Except this communication is not encrypted smile.gif
My bet is for many people, it was at one point. Probably WEP.
QUOTE
Many have to be able to decrypt what One encrypted.

If the one encrypts it for every node it's going to and those nodes do the same, it's all one to one encryption. The node simply does a lot of one-to-one encryption. If the nodes are using OTPs then connecting (or worse, re-connecting) a node is unpleasant at a minimum.

Security makes things difficult to use. It's easy to break into a house or a car or even misusing someone's personal information because if those things were actually secure, they would be a pain the neck to use. I don't want to deal with a passkey, a passcode, and a retinal scan when trying to bring the groceries inside while it's raining, ESPECIALLY if I have a lot of groceries and have to do it every single time. I REALLY don't want to find out my one time pad and the house's one time pad are out of sync. EVER.

When I tell my Ares Predator to fire, it had better dang well fire, not spend .25 seconds checking my authorization. When the long rifle man needs my data on the tacnet I don't want to be in the middle of trying to resync my OTP with the TacNet's OTP. I want it to work first and be secure second.

Note: When I'm talking encryption as far as communication goes (and it's my assumption that shadowrun is doing the same thing), I'm talking about encryption of the packets of data. Note that the length of a packet is probably much shorter than the length of the keys people are talking about, especially with devices with less signal range. (Packet loss is a determinate in packet length.) I'm not thinking of the whole chunk of data (a video for example) being encrypted, broken up into packets, sent, reassembled, and decrypted. That is an entirely different hacking issue, involving actually getting one's hands on all the packets. Such issues would lead me to the path of "go to the dang system that has the fire in the first place and liberate it".

Smokeskin
QUOTE (Traul @ Jul 29 2010, 09:02 PM) *
Except we are not only talking about video here, but simsense, tacnet, smarlinks,... No one has any idea of how much bitrate this takes. Storage is infinite, but so are communication rates. You are pitting two infinites against each other, deciding which one wins, then you start bitching about it.


Uhm no. I know that pretty much whatever feed I have, I can store what comes in for practically as long as I want. That very clearly settles the issue of bandwidth vs. storage.
Smokeskin
QUOTE (sabs @ Jul 29 2010, 09:32 PM) *
And if there are 10+ million pads out there, why can't I steal one?
Or do a hardware dupe on it.

Pads work for spies, and small group communications.
They don't work for mass encrypting communications.


You don't give the same pad to 10 million. You give them a distinct pad each, then have them communicate through a hub that decrypt the message with the sender's pad, then encrypt it with the receiver's pad.

But yeah, it works a lot better for small groups. What this comes down to is, that security drone? One-time padded comms. The team you're up against? One-time padded comms. Etc.
Karoline
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jul 29 2010, 04:14 PM) *
You don't give the same pad to 10 million. You give them a distinct pad each, then have them communicate through a hub that decrypt the message with the sender's pad, then encrypt it with the receiver's pad.

But yeah, it works a lot better for small groups. What this comes down to is, that security drone? One-time padded comms. The team you're up against? One-time padded comms. Etc.

Then the hacker goes into the hub and steals every single pad the company has (or at least all the ones that hub is set up to deal with) all in one fell swoop.
Dumori
QUOTE (kzt @ Jul 29 2010, 08:20 PM) *
No, you can't. Every possible message is equally possible as an outcome. Really. Not kidding. It's mathematically provable.

OTP has lots of defects, but that isn't one.

I'm not disagreeing but burte forcing one could well be done with some external logic/decuction. If you know who its from and or too and it isn't pre encrypted then looking for those bits of info will help you get rid of chaff. How ever even then you can get a completely wrong message that looks right. How ever soem one not pre encryting a one time pad is playing dumb and this only really works if you know what should be on the pad. If you know its in X format you can drop any message you get in another. Though yes a plain OTP with no idea what it is might as well be discarded. I believe I just wrote my point badly.
Heath Robinson
QUOTE (sabs @ Jul 29 2010, 09:49 PM) *
in the OTP system, in order to decrypt the information encrypted by Pad 1, you MUST have Pad 2. You can only communicate between two people. For a corporate setting, this is rarely the desired result. Corporations want to be able to encrypt their data once, and have multiple people be able to read it.

OTP systems would not work for trading financial information between ZO and the rest of the financial institutions in the world.
Might an OTP system exist in shadowrun, yes. Would it be used? Rarely. Shadowrunners would actually be the most likely people to use OTP systems.

In a wire system, in order to receive the information sent from end 1, you MUST have end 2. You can only communicate between two people. And yet you still post, and so do I.

Think on that and you may be enlightened.
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