From:	"Mark L. Neidengard" <mneideng@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Business?
Date:	Tue, 3 Mar 1998 14:55:51 -0800

According to Ereskanti:
>In a message dated 98-03-03 14:57:40 EST, mach@****.caltech.edu writes:
>
>> Since the message is already *****PRIVATE to Faerie, then I don't see the
>> reason why the section you encrypted needed to be any more private than
>> the rest of it. (As a side note, since I know a little more about the
>> character than you do, too much technomantic legendermain may make the
>> post quite unreadable for her...but I guess that is up to Jaimie to
>> decide.)
>>
>Okay, I have to ask something on this topic. What about "Topic Trace &
>Report"? The information is moving all over the WWW/Net. If a Trace of some
>sort was involved at a given LTG or RTG structure, then it -could- find a
>given word and bring it down, even if it was encrypted.

IF it was at the right place, operational, and IF it could break the
encryption. Both are very big ifs.

>Defeating the encryption would be the "opposed test" between the reading
>program and the encryption of the file itself.

As a baseline. There are further problems about content: how is the program
supposed to know what it's looking for? If it's something like traffic
intended for Shadowland, maybe it could look for "ASCII" text or something,
but what is it supposed to do with a random binary? Gurgle and run home to
mommy, most likely. Of course, FASA makes it much easier to decrypt things
than it is in the real world (just like FASA's guns are in general less lethal)
but even so, the enterprising person can simply layer encryption on top of
encryption to make simple net Agents totally unable to figure out what they're
looking at.

>I have -really- wondered this concerning the "SIGA/Farmer" thread, which is
>-really- good work, but has a LOT of openings that both sides seem to be
>missing that I find really obvious.

Remember: leaving a little program around trying to mine other people's data
is likely to a) have the program squashed and b) have the people come looking
for who launched it, and c) if the people are serious they've already prepared
for such tactics.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mneideng
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Operator/Jack-of-all-Trades, CACR
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict