YANR – Cryptography

When privacy becomes a privilege

On October 19, 2015

Since Marcus was questioned by the National Homeland Security after “being at the wrong place at the wrong time”, his freedom has been taken away from him. During the journey, he has fought himself all the way to the end of the story for his rights, freedom and privacy. In this specific setting, these rights, freedom and privacy are no longer what we “suppose to have”, but rather a privilege that need to be earned.

Coming from a country where websites or tools such as Google, Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter are all blocked, I witnessed people’s different attitudes and approaches to this seemingly harsh censorship. Some would, as Doctorow suggests, getting around the Great Firewall of China by using an encrypted connection to computer in some other country (p. 112); some would physically get through this firewall, which is what I ended up doing. Either way, people would take some risks or make some sacrifice for the privilege to own their privacy. On the other hand, others, probably happen to be the majority of the population, either don’t really care about this censorship or choose to do nothing with it.

That really got me thinking, why would we care about privacy anymore while a lot of people around us seem to think it’s no big deal? And again I asked the question I asked when I wrote the first paper: why would we care about data mining if we are doing nothing wrong? Doctorow offers his answer to the questions in “Little Brother”– because privacy does matter. It is not about doing something wrong or shameful, but about doing something private, about having some corner of our lives that is ours, and knowing no one else gets to see it. (p. 57)

Fear: a powerful motivator

By YANR

On October 11, 2015

In Student Posts

German’s overconfidence in their “unbreakable” enigma machine surely contributed to the Allied cryptanalysts’ victorious over German cryptographers. At the same time, other key driving forces that might have enormously contributed to the success of the Allied cryptanalysts were their consistent sense of insecurity and fear of being defeated in the war.

While the allied first laid back and lost their cryptanalytic zeal believing that Germany was no longer a threat, Poland, as a newly formed independent state, realized the danger of being in between Russia and Germany and therefore, at the time, any information regarding the two enemies was highly valued by the Poland cryptographers. The Poles tried everything they could to attempt to make a progress, including forming a new cipher bureau, employing a clairvoyant and paying to make Schmidt turn traitor to German to provide the information for the Allied to create a replica of the Enigma machine.

Similarly, after Poland shared Rejewski’s bombes with the Allied, the Bletchley Park was formed and the continuous evolvement of the enigma machine motivated this group of talented people to keep taking risks, being creative, pushing and exploring the boundaries in order to break this seemingly unbreakable enigma machine. They tried to figure out any weakness not only of the enigma machine but also of those who used enigma. With German’s overconfidence and the Allied enormous effort driven by the fear and threat of being kept in the dark from German, eventually Allied cryptanalysts victorious over the German cryptographers and ended the war earlier than it could be.

Strategical rather than unethical

By YANR

On September 29, 2015

In Student Posts

After the Zimmermann telegram was deciphered, Admiral Hall chose to withhold the important information regarding the unrestricted submarine warfare and put many Americans’ lives on the line.

The decision itself at that moment seemed unethical because it resulted in the death of many innocent Americans. However, thinking in a larger scale, Hall’s action was justifiable. Firstly, given this war context, the ethical considerations probably weren’t be the top priority for people who dedicated themselves for the future of their country. Instead of thinking about whether their decisions might be ethical, they would probably spending more time weighing up the consequences of their actions, which, in Hall’s case, was the potential long-term consequences of disclosing their advanced cryptographic progression to the world. Hall realized that it might eventually make the British lose the advantage of using their advanced cryptographic techniques to gather the information that would be extremely valuable to them in the war.

Another text written by Sun-Tze in the Art of War says that “if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.” Sun-Tze’s words implies that in order to win the battle, not only should us try to gather as much information as we can about the enemies, but also try to avoid exposing any of our own progression to the enemies. That was exactly what Hall did. His action enabled the British to see through German’s plot while keeping the Germany in the dark, hence gaining significant advantages in the long run. In this sense, I believe that Hall’s decision shouldn’t be considered unethical, but simply strategical.

How and to what extent should we use student data mining?

By YANR

On September 6, 2015

In Student Posts

The author of the article ““Mining Student Data Could Save Lives”, Michael Morris, suggests that student data mining is necessary in schools and can be used to prevent oncampus violence. It is indeed a controversial topic that is very relevant to us as students. Personally, I’m an international student who have experienced both eastern and western educations; in both cases, students’ networks are totally under the surveillance. I’ve also heard and witnessed a few incidents of the school intervening with students’ online behaviors, and I really start to question whether we have such thing as privacy once we are connected to the Internet.

On the other hand, due to the special relationship between the university/college and the students, certain surveillance of students’ internet behaviors might be needed for safety reasons. But before it is used and heavily valued in universities, one might want to question the effectiveness of this technology. Is that really a tool with such high accuracy? Or in fact students are more often being stigmatized? Also, for those “troubled” students, would they really use the school Internet to search about the “twin Glock 22 pistols”, or email each other about the plan or violent behaviors they are about to pull off? Certain levels of student data mining can be used in universities, but how and to what extent it should be used need to be well considered.

Changing perspectives on cryptography

By YANR

On August 31, 2015

In Student Posts

It is not surprising that using frequency analysis to solve substitution required a sophisticated level of scholarship in the 9th century. It might take decades of textual study, statistics knowledge and mathematical insights for the Arabian cryptanalysts to successfully find this method. In “The Code Book”, Singh also suggests that the Muslim civilization provided an ideal cradle because “every Muslim is obliged to pursue knowledge in all its forms” and the scholars “had the time, money and materials required to fulfill their duty.” (Singh 16)

Today’s amateur cryptanalysts seem to still fulfill these “requirements”. Nowadays people with only a few years of education would already have certain level of knowledge in such fields. The resources are so accessible now that they no longer need to be“scholars” but indeed anyone with any intention or interest about cryptography. Undoubtedly only a small amount of people will be trained as professional cryptanalysts, but it’s incredibly easy for anyone to search about cryptography, share thoughts with others about the ciphers they write, or take an online cryptography course.

Today’s generation is a group of people that are taught to solve puzzles when little and raised with films or literature talking about cryptography often in one form or another. With the emerging technologies in hand and a broad access to the subject, people nowadays have entirely new perspective on cryptography. On the other hand, people back in time were strictly limited by the resources they had and the little exposure to the knowledge. Politics might also come into play since a large proportion of citizens interested in inventing or breaking codes might not be the best interest of a monarchical government at that time.

Cryptography

The History and Mathematics of Codes and Code Breaking

Author: YANR

When privacy becomes a privilege

Fear: a powerful motivator

Strategical rather than unethical

How and to what extent should we use student data mining?

Changing perspectives on cryptography

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