August 2018 – Cryptography

In his essay, “Mining Student Data Could Save Lives”, Michael Morris argues that universities should implement data mining algorithms to detect patterns in student activities on their networks (e.g. any activity occurring on the WiFi network, school computers, or communications through university email accounts). According to Morris, the implementation of these algorithms could potentially prevent violent acts from occurring on campus; after all, almost every large-scale act of campus violence has been preceded by warning signs which, if recognized before the incident, would have indicated that an act of violence was imminent and could have been prevented.

Indeed, there is something compelling about Morris’ argument. A student who purchased high-powered firearms on the school network sending emails on a clearly detailing plans to perpetrate an act of violence clearly warrants a breach of individual privacy to ensure the safety of the campus community. However, very few scenarios are this clear cut since most evidence would not be as damning as an explicit description of a violent act sent on a university email.

This raises the issue of false positives, one that is inherent in all data mining algorithms. In the article, Morris specifically cites the example of banks using data mining to detect stolen credit cards. And while these algorithms are good at detecting stolen cards, they are equally adept at generating false positives, deactivating cards after valid transactions that were deemed suspicious. Similarly, algorithms designed to monitor communications on university networks would need to be extremely sensitive even to small red flags in order to effectively prevent violent acts. However, designing the algorithm in this way would lead to false positives being regularly detected, incriminating students who had no violent intentions simply for their normal browsing activities and communications with others. If even one student is called in to “have a conversation” because of something the algorithm detected, it has already failed to do its job at the cost of individual freedom and privacy.

In principle, Morris’ idea is persuasive. The perfect data mining algorithm would be ideal for stopping campus violence without the need for extreme invasion of privacy or the generation of false positives. However, the implementation of a data mining algorithm in our complex world would require sacrificing students’ digital privacy for little to no benefit.

Blog Assignment #3

On August 29, 2018

In Blog Assignments

For your third blog assignment, write a post between 200 and 400 words in which you (briefly) summarize and react to a passage in Little Brother that caught your attention. You might address why it interests you, connections you see between the passage and other ideas we’ve discussed this semester, or your opinion on arguments made in the passage.

Please (1) give your post a descriptive title, (2) assign it to the “Student Posts” category, and (3) give it at least three useful tags. Your post is due by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, September 10th.

Problem Set #1

On August 29, 2018

In Problem Sets

Here’s your first problem set, in both Word and PDF formats. It’s due on paper at the start of class on Wednesday, September 5th.

In case they’re helpful, here are some Excel files I’ve used in class.

The Encryption That Revealed More Than It Hid

By sunils

On August 28, 2018

“A false sense of security is the only kind there is”

-Michael Meade

In the epoch of technology and the internet, this particular quote rings painfully true. We read about black hat hacking being ubiquitous yet we don’t think twice before entering privileged information into a website whilst being connected to the free, unprotected airport wifi. Until recently, for years, we’ve utilized WhatsApp and Facebook to text people and have felt safe by adding a passcode to our phones while all that information ran through servers with no signs of encryption whatsoever. I believe the sense of security we felt doing all those perfunctory actions was not a great digression from that felt by Mary Queen of Scots when she decided to be party to the assassination.

When Singh says that “weak encryption can be worse than no encryption at all”, I believe he refers to the fundamental idea that when we encrypt something, we do it under the premise that the information stays protected and confidential and that feeling of safety brings its own set of privileges. However, violation of that safety can cause catastrophic repercussions which would not have occurred had there been no sense of safety in the first place. Coming to our example, Mary Queen of Scots was negligent in her parlance because she had faith in her encryption. If we were to hypothesize, for the sake of discussion, that there had been no encryption, she would have exercised far more caution and might have not said something damning enough to incriminate her in court. Her weak encryption, in a way, did more damage to her case than what would have occurred had there been none.

Coming to the implication of that statement, I believe there is more to it than what meets the eye. Mathematically, the transitive property dictates that if better encryption equals more safety and confidence, and more safety and confidence equals better language and more information, therefore, better encryption equals more information. However, by some disparity in the aforementioned, if that encryption turns out to be weak, the final quantity of the above equation might turn from your best ally to your worst foe. Thus, it is important to realize that cryptography will only work well if the there is a time factor involved and it is safest to always presume that in time, your code will be broken and to contemplate the consequences of that situation.

Testing

On August 28, 2018

In Uncategorized

Here’s what the embed looks like.

Blog Assignment #2

In Blog Assignments

For your second blog assignment, read the 2011 essay “Mining Student Data Could Save Lives” by Michael Morris of California State University at Channel Islands and write a post between 200 and 400 words that responds to the following prompt.

What is the central argument Morris makes in his essay? Do you agree with it? Why or why not?

This is a chance to practice your summarizing skills and to construct a (brief) response to an author’s thesis. Feel free to draw on personal experiences in your response, if that’s relevant.

Please give your post a descriptive title, and use the “Student Posts” category for your post. Also, give your post at least three tags, where each tag is a word or very short phrase (no more than three words) that describe the post’s content. You’re encouraged to use tags already in the system if they apply to your post.

Your post is due by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, September 3rd. If you have any technical problems using WordPress, don’t hesitate to ask.

Bookmark Assignment #1

In Bookmark Assignments

For your first bookmarking assignment, you’re invited to bookmark anything you like that’s related to cryptography. Look for a news article or resource on cryptography that’s interesting to you. Be sure that you’re bookmarking a credible source. If you’re not sure where to go with this, look for inspiration in Singh Chapter 1. Save your bookmark to our Diigo group, and give your bookmark at least two useful tags.

Your bookmark is due by 9:00 a.m. on Friday, August 31st. We’ll take a little time in class to share your finds. If you have any questions about using Diigo, don’t hesitate to ask.

Image: “Interesting Pin,” by me, Flickr (CC)

Different Applications of Cryptography Over Time

By Jerry

The only records we have of cryptography used in the past come from people with the resources and technical skills to encrypt and decrypt messages, whether they were World War II spies, Arab scholars, or Greek military leaders. Although not all of the encryption methods mentioned by Singh in Chapter 1 required exceptional resources (the Spartan scytale method used only a staff and parchment), they all required an understanding of the concept of encryption, which was a largely unused technique prior to the development of each cultures’ breakthrough cryptography methods. Additionally, it’s a reasonable assumption that cryptographers would have wanted to keep their methods secret from the general public, as knowledge of the code would have weakened the encryption. Therefore, I believe that the reason so few records of cryptography exist outside of well-resourced people is because they closely guarded the secrets to their specific codes after development, which, once revealed, often turned out to be simple and did not require exceptional resources.

However, this only applies to encryption and the building of ciphers. The techniques the Arabs developed for the decryption of substitution ciphers required extensive knowledge on linguistics and math, as frequency analysis only works if the cryptanalyst is familiar with the mechanics of a language.

Over time, techniques for encryption and decryption have been constantly improved in an arms race to create more secure codes and ways to break them. Nowadays, the most secure encryptions are created using supercomputers and unique encryption keys, which arguably requires more exceptional resources than simply deciding on a certain substitution cipher. However, the most significant difference between cryptography now and then is that very secure encryption is available to the general public, while people in the past who weren’t involved in the encryption and decryption process had very limited access to effective cryptography. Although only the developers of specific encryptions know the specific mechanics, they are made available for anyone to use.

The Problem with Weak Encryption

By schrokr1