[Cryptography] Shamir Reveals Sisyphus Algorithm

[Kent Borg]

On April 22, 2015 12:24:20 PM EDT, John Young <jya at pipeline.com> wrote:
>Adi Shamir at RSA Conference:
>
>Fully secure systems don't exist now and won't exist in the future.
>
>Cryptography won't be broken, it will be bypassed.
>
>Futility of trying to eliminate every single vulnerability in a given
>piece of software.
>
>https://threatpost.com/fully-secure-systems-dont-exist/112380#sthash.sKPz03sv.dpuf

A frustrating article that leaves me with the reaction of "And...?". 
Something tells me that Shamir's keynote was more interesting.  Are 
their any good reports on it?



Standard Rants, with a Fresh New analogy:

It is as though we are on a ship that is taking on prodigious amounts of 
water, we have massive pumps running full time, this article seems like 
we are being told that it is silly to think a bilge should be bone dry.

Yes, the best ships will always have some water leaking in, but we 
currently have things so badly designed that passengers and crew going 
about their daily routine keep opening hatches below the waterline. We 
need some lifeboat drills, to point out to the everyone they are on a 
ship, and the water must be kept out. And we need ships that are 
actually designed to float.

Sure, let's not spend our time worrying too much whether a standard 
model valve--which works great--could be made more perfect. We haven't 
begun to install those valves correctly. Let's not also think that 
bigger pumps will bail us out, even though the commercial security 
industry seems fixated on selling us bigger and better pumps.


-kb