[GLLUG] Schneier on Windows

Kami Vaniea kami.vaniea at gmail.com
Tue Sep 17 00:20:30 EDT 2013


Since I'm literally writing a research paper right now on the difference
between security related intentions and behaviors, I'm going to
disagree.  I'm going to bet that the NSA exposure convince lots of
people that they *should* be using good tools and might even get a fair
number to try out tools that are advertised as "invincible". However,
I'm with Steve that the number of people that actually start using
provably secure tools will be very small. Why? Because actual security
is very hard to understand, and typically challenging to use correctly.

- Kami


On 9/17/2013 12:10 AM, STeve Andre' wrote:
> That's not really true.  There are many documented cases of encryption
> which no
> one has been able to break.  We know this, because if they had
> succeeded, the
> person doing the encryption would certainly be prosecuted.   It may be
> close to
> vanishingly rare, but it does happen.
> 
> Want to bet that the recent NSA exposure isn't going to convince more
> and more
> people to start using really good tools?
> 
> --STeve Andre'
> 
> On 09/16/13 23:23, Karl Schuttler wrote:
>> Certainly an interesting article, but a bit silly. If they want you,
>> they'll have you. 
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 9:00 AM, Clay Dowling <clay at lazarusid.com
>> <mailto:clay at lazarusid.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     On 09/15/2013 02:35 PM, Chick Tower wrote:
>>     > In his article at
>>     >
>>     > https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/how_to_remain_s.html
>>     >
>>     > and after outlining several measures to limit the ability of the NSA
>>     > to snoop on internet users, Bruce Schneier writes
>>     >
>>     > "I understand that most of this is impossible for the typical
>>     Internet
>>     > user. Even I don't use all these tools for most everything I am
>>     > working on. And I'm still primarily on Windows, unfortunately. Linux
>>     > would be safer."
>>
>>     That was an excellent read.  Of particular note was that public key
>>     encryption was inferior to symetric shared key encryption.  I had
>>     always
>>     distrusted such encryption because of the shared key, which imposes a
>>     fixed target for attackers to work against, but a little reflection on
>>     historical key exchange methods reminds me that each encrypted message
>>     can contain the key for the next message that will be received,
>>     effectively creating a moving target.
>>
>>     Clay
>>
> 
> 
> 
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