nanog mailing list archives
Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds?
From: David Barak <thegameiam () yahoo com>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 11:56:32 -0700 (PDT)
--- On Tue, 6/2/09, Charles Wyble <charles () thewybles com> wrote:
David Barak wrote:Encryption is insufficient - if you let someone havephysical access for a long enough period, they'll eventually crack anything. Really? I don't think so. I imagine it would be much more dependent on the amount of computing power the attacker has access to. More encrypted blobs won't help. If that was the case then the various encryption schemes in wide use today would be cracked already. Bad guys can setup networks and blast data through it and have complete access. I don't see them cracking encryption.
Paranoia 101 teaches us that any given encryption approach will eventually fall before a brute-force onslaught of sufficient power and duration[1]. I'm not trying to argue that the attacker in this case could necessarily detect a flaw in the algorithm; rather, they'll get an effectively infinite number of chances to bang against it with no consequences. Once it's cracked, the attacker will *still* have the physical access which is thus compromised, and then has free access to all of the transmissions. Physical security is a prerequisite to all of the other approaches to communication security. Those cases where physical security is presumed to be non-existant have to rely on a lot of out-of-band knowledge for any given method to be resistant to attack, and it's very hard to make use of a connection of that type for regular operations. Pretty much all security eventually boils down to people with firearms saying "don't do that." David Barak Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise: http://www.listentothefranchise.com
Current thread:
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds?, (continued)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Christopher Morrow (Jun 02)
- RE: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Eric Van Tol (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Leo Bicknell (Jun 01)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Martin Hannigan (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Jared Mauch (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Robert Bonomi (Jun 01)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Warren Bailey (Jun 01)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? David Barak (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Charles Wyble (Jun 02)
- RE: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Deepak Jain (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Charles Wyble (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? David Barak (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Charles Wyble (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Marshall Eubanks (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Michael Holstein (Jun 02)
- RE: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Deepak Jain (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Chris Adams (Jun 02)
- RE: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Deepak Jain (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Chris Adams (Jun 02)
- RE: Fiber cut - response in seconds? John van Oppen (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Charles Wyble (Jun 02)
- Re: Fiber cut - response in seconds? Ryan Wilkins (Jun 02)