[Cryptography] improved identification of non-targets

[Peter Fairbrother]

On 13/01/2020 09:27, jamesd at echeque.com wrote:
> 
>>> Here is a generic design for IFF [...]
>>> The secret that corresponds to the public key that gets signed can be 
>>> in a sealed box, and to get it out you would have to get into the 
>>> airliner and open up the box.
> 
> On 2020-01-13 07:44, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>> Or steal the box and put it in your bomber ...
> 
> That works, but only for a limited time.  Then you have to steal another 
> box. 

I don't foresee much use for a second box - after the first bomb drops 
the defenders will shoot at anything in the sky which doesn't have their 
own military IFF, plus civilian flights will stay away.



A more general point - many of the proposals here might work well if 
there was a single big joined-up-system including the military. 
Unfortunately it is seldom like that...

It's a little like doctors and medical records. You can have a really 
good record-keeping system, but it turns out to be of very limited use 
in emergency rooms - the doctors just don't trust it to be 100% 
accurate, so they ask the same routine life-and-death questions.

Similarly, the guy on the trigger doesn't have the full picture, and air 
defence systems are designed to kill even when he has no "big" picture 
at all.


Peter Fairbrother