From: an56238@anon.penet.fi (zaaaaaaaap!)
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 07:17:10 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re:quote of the day
Message-ID: <9401261423.AA07096@anon.penet.fi>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Carl_Ellison@vos.stratus.com writes:

>
>          Only those means of security are good, are
>          certain, are lasting, that depend on yourself
>          and your own vigor.
>                                          - Machiavelli
>

That reminds me of my first reaction to CypherPunks: why would the government
spend thousands of $$$ of supercomputer time & mathematician brains to see
your miserable piece of information, when all they have to do is lock you up
at the back of a countryside garage,  beat the shit out of you, inject
various chemicals into your blood until you spit out your secret key ?

That was a bit harsh, but, going back to the essentials, a crypto system
is as weak as its weakest link, isn'it ? Now that we've got them pgp, RSA and
IDEA and whatnot, fine, we've built a 20 inches thick steel chain around our
little secrets.

Except that this marvelous piece of technology is held together with a hair
strand: your brain.
Where you key is kept, and where everybody assumes it's safe.

Isn't time we take a look at another kind of cryptographic attack, the
ancestor of which bore the delicate name of penthotal ?

Nobody ever speaks of them chemicals that make you talk. But they exist,
and as well as cryptography techniques developed fast recently, trust the
government, those chemicals must have made a few advances.
Like, for example making you tell what you don't want to and then make you
forget about anybody asking.

Or maybe I watch too many serials.

Does anybody have informations about state of the art tell-us-you-story-pills ?

- -zap

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