Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to Paul Campbell,
I’m sure the good people of PA can think of more ….
Shouted out "who's the boss?", indicating a tragic obsession with 80s television.
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to James Butler,
Without knowing too much, would it have looked weird if he didn’t agree to be her referee? If I had worked with a Mayor on anything I’d expect to get mileage from it in job applications.
IANAL, but it was my understanding that giving a reference is something previous employers are required by law to do, and they can't say anything bad. Might be wrong about that...anyone know?
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Low voter turnout can mean that people feel, on the whole, that matters are in safe hands. Also, on the election of specialists, I expect most people feel the way I do - lost in the dark, and pretty much voting for the deepest CV.
It seems strange to me how much furore there is over the low turnout. It's very much to be expected that matters of special concern simply don't attract much attention. Do we really need to vote on how many paper clips will be purchased by the council? It's nice to be able to vote on it, but it's not a sign of dysfunction that only a small number want to. It's how organization of large complex systems like local government have always worked. National level government is different, because their power is extraordinary, to the point of setting the basic moral framework of society, so most people both are, and should be, interested.
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It’s like they’re trying to issue a warning, but they haven’t actually worked out what the warning needs to be about.
Indeed. I know one autistic child whose escape artistry has meant the family have actually needed to get a GPS tracking ankle bracelet. Ordinary advice just doesn't apply - expecting parents to actually have prison guard levels of vigilance is a bit much. Normal behavior manipulation doesn't work with this boy, or at least it works far, far slower. Last I heard, he'd also worked out how to slip the bracelet too. But he does seem to be doing it less, as they become more experienced at managing him.
Police seem to have a great deal of trouble acknowledging that autism is real. I guess the law is a hammer, and every difficult kid just looks like a nail.
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Hard News: When a riot went on, in reply to Dave Waugh,
But could they handle it?
You can't vandal the truth!
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Hard News: Friday Music: Weird Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
better have been some good shit :)
Or a big cone!
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OnPoint: The Big Guns: Truecrypt and Tails, in reply to SteveH,
If you’re designing a system that will use existing filesystems you don’t have the luxury of deciding which sectors the outer filesystem will decide to use.
No, but I'm in complete control of the organization of the virtual sectors within the system.
Aside from that, with your design, if there is a hidden volume that you’re using then the data at end of the partition is going to change regardless of how full outer volume is. Thus changing data at the end of the partition is prima facie evidence of a hidden volume.
If I'm using the data, then I'm logged into the volume and its existence is not even in question. Do you mean "if someone could take a secret snapshot before and after"? Or are you referring to the outer file system's timestamping?
It’s not necessary to mount the inner volume as there is a mode which simply protects the sectors used by the inner volume.
Which is pretty much evidence for the existence of the inner volume, and its upper size limit, which is why I suggested the way I'd do it. There's further tweaks possible, to get around the outer file system noting when the last sector access was, depending on the OS you're on.
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OnPoint: The Big Guns: Truecrypt and Tails, in reply to SteveH,
The “one-time” in OTP refers to single use which is one of the critical requirements of the system.
I beg to differ. It refers specifically to the fact that pages of the pad were burned after one use. Not put in the bin, or scribbled on, or copied out a thousand times. The physical destruction of the key was built into the system, indeed it was why the key was on a pad with small pages, so that this could be done.
It is generally accepted that it is sufficient to keep secret the fact that something is being used as a key.
That may practically work, against a weak attacker, but it's not a one time pad.
Of course if an adversary is aware that both parties have the same CD (or book or whatever) they would be very suspicious, so one or both parties should dissociate themselves from whatever they are using to source the key.
There would be no reason at all to keep the CD or book. You'd extract the key from it, and keep only that, which is a far more convenient thing to have, not least because you can one-time as much of the key as you have in your possession. Then at least the obscurity part would be there. The attacker would have to find the original key to crack any intercepted communication, even if they got their hands on what was left of your key.
A bigger problem with using something like a CD is that a OTP really needs to be perfectly random.
That is a problem. A sneakier trick I read in an encryption book some time ago is to rip the CD and alter the LSB to be your random key string. The music will still sound the same. But this is only useful during the transport of the key, if it is believed that you may be intercepted and taken to task for carrying a key. This book hailed from the days, not so long ago, when moving encryption stuff around was technically illegal across a lot of borders.
If you are actually physically in contact with the intended recipient, you might as well just give them a key in convenient form.
Or stick to PGP, it's simpler and if you're trying to protect against people who can break it, then good luck, see you in another life.
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OnPoint: The Big Guns: Truecrypt and Tails, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
But how it’s practical to encrypt a stash of documents is very questionable. You need a key as big as your document set – where are you going to keep it? If you bury a memory stick with it on in the garden, you could equally bury the documents in the garden (I suppose you could bury both in different gardens).
It's for secure transmission, not storage.
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OnPoint: The Big Guns: Truecrypt and Tails, in reply to Matthew Poole,
The problem with OTPs is that their use requires an initial secure distribution channel, which really limits their use for communications between people who have never met.
Yes. but for people whom you have met, it's a not unreasonable system these days, considering how compactly we can store a huge key, and how secure it is. Also the algorithm is so simple that you can have a very high degree of certainty that it doesn't have a bug or exploit.
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