maxomai: dog (dog)
2013-12-20 06:09 pm
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#NSA paid #RSA to use flawed random number generator, make their encryption easier to crack

Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know this:

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September.

...

Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract.


In other words, if you used RSA products and the default random number generator, you basically gave the NSA the keys to your kingdom....not to mention anyone to whom the NSA disclosed this information, willingly or otherwise.

You would do well to dump RSA products and find an open source substitute immediately.
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maxomai: dog (Default)
2012-11-07 12:00 pm
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The Pink Unicorn | #Math

Since we're all chatting about math in the wake of the success of Nate Silver's model, I'd like to share an analogy that I use to explain the primacy of math to certain managers.

Every once in a while, I get a manager or business representative asking me for something that just isn't going to happen, for example, a program that predicts whether another program will halt. This is when I use the analogy of the pink unicorn.

For example: "To be blunt, I'd actually prefer it if you added a pink unicorn to the requirements."

After the puzzled look: "Well, here's the situation. What you're asking for, X, is just not possible. It's not that we can't do it on the resources we have, it's that X is mathematically impossible. The fundamentals of computing are that it cannot be done. On the other hand, a pink unicorn doesn't violate the laws of mathematics. As far as I know, it doesn't violate any natural laws, either. And while I've never seen one, and I'm pretty sure that no such thing exists, the fact that it's at least theoretically possible to deliver a pink unicorn makes it much more likely that I will deliver a pink unicorn than that I will deliver X."

This is usually an analogy that should be delivered with some honey.
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