Talk:Cryptanalysis/Draft

I am thinking of a re-organisation here, along the lines:

• Attacks on the system
  • Practical cryptanalysis
  • Traffic analysis
  • Side channel attacks
  • Bypassing authentication
  • Guessing secrets
    • Dictionary attacks on passwords
    • Random number weaknesses
    • Small keys
• Attacks on the ciphers

Then the topics we currently have under "Mathematical cryptanalysis".

Things like man-in-the-middle would then turn up in two places, first under "Bypassing authentication" because if you can do that then you don't have to break the actual encryption, and second under "Attacks on the ciphers" for details of attacks on different authentication mechanisms since those details are much the same as other attacks on RSA, block ciphers or whatever. Sandy Harris 01:51, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Should social engineering be under guessing, or its own category? For that matter, where does one put the people who write their keys on their desk calendar?

"Social engineering" and "shoulder surfing" would be categories, perhaps subheads under practical cryptanalysis. Sandy Harris 07:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Side channel, I assume. covers TEMPEST/HIJACK/TEAPOT/NONSTOP, timing analysis on plaintext, acoustic cryptanalysis, Operation RAFTER (specific case of getting the received text off the intermediate frequency)

Could you define "attacks on the ciphers"?

I think this is going somewhere interesting, but not sure where it is yet.

If you would, see if we can agree on some of the more specific (e.g.,) authentication attacks in communications security. I am also open to a better name for that article. Howard C. Berkowitz 05:51, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

By "attacks on the ciphers" (chosen mainly to contrast with "attacks on the system") I meant what is now called "mathematical cryptanalysis" and might be called "cryptanalysis proper". Not sure what the best title would be.

Somewhere up in the opening/overview part I'd want to say that, while this is a real threat, it may not be the main threat in many cases. Quote Anderson [1] about banking sytems "the threat model commonly used by cryptosystem designers was wrong: most frauds were not caused by cryptanalysis or other technical attacks, but by implementation errors and management failures." or Schneier's intro to Secrets and Lies where he says in some ways writing "Applied Cryptography" was a mistake; too much technology, not enough attention to other issues.

Side channel certainly covers Tempest and RAFTER (new to me). I'm not sure if differential fault analysis and timing attacks go there or under "attacks on the ciphers"; I lean toward the latter since they aim at finding the keys rather than just reading material. Sandy Harris 07:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)