In this post, I discuss the basic concepts of determination and adversary. Let's review some practical aspects of these concepts.
Determination is a qualitative measure of a party to protect or discover information.
If I (an originator) am interested in hiding information (asset), then I must understand the information that I am hiding, the value of that information to me or associated interested parties and the value of the information to other parties.
Let's create a practical hierarchy of the other party. The terms used here are practical terms and are not a reference from any other source. Let's set aside information brokers, i.e. parties whose interest is to discover information regardless of its value and create markets for this information.
- Unaware party - The party is unaware of the information.
- Disinterested party - The party is aware of the information, but has no interest in the information.
- Anonymous party - The party is aware of the information and cannot be identified.
- Prospective adversary - The party is aware of the information and has motives to either cause harm through the discovery of the information, or benefit from the discovery of the information. The source of the harm or the benefit may or may not affect the originator.
- Qualified adversary - The party is aware of the information and its originator and will benefit from the discovery of the information and cause harm to the originator.
- Closed adversary - The party is a qualified adversary and has an interest in the discovery of all information from the originator regardless of the value of the information.
- Closed and determined adversary - The party is a closed adversary and is willing to use means to acquire capabilities to discover all information from the originator.
There certainly are other relationships that could exist as this list is by no means comprehensive. The primary focus is to try to understand the value of the asset and the interest of the other party. The classification as adversary should be derived from the relationship.
So given these relationships, we now have context for determination. Determination is qualitatively defined by means and capabilities. The notion of horizon is also important.
- means - The amount of resources available to the party to pursue the discovery of the information. This is typically measured in some monetary value. Another common usage of means would be the availablity of computation cycles from other sources.
- capabilities - The availability of knowledge and computational power (or other capabilities) that can be applied to the discovery of the information.
- horizon - An estimate of the time for which this information has value. An example of horizon might be intellectual property surrounding a patent. If a patent's life is 17 years, communications surrounding the research in the first year may provide benefit to other interested parties 16 years later at patent expiration. The horizon for this information is at least 16 years.
As the originator of the information, the responsibility lies in the estimate of harm or benefit that can come from the discovery of the information. This typically is the basis for determination. If as the originator, I find that I am consistently outclassed in determination, e.g. my adversary is a government agency in the business of being a closed and determined adversary, there is little that I can do to protect the asset.
Let's take an example where the asset has a horizon of 10 years. If the other party (of interest) has only simple capabilities and there are reasonable assumptions that can be made, then estimates of means and capabilities can be made. For example, it is highly unlikely that there exists in the public domain an algorithm which significantly reduces the RSA key search space mathematically. It is further unlikely that there are any known side-channel attacks or other attacks in the public domain that would reduce the cost of discovery of the key in RSA encryption. Since these are believed to be true and likely true for a horizon of 10 years, an estimate can be made of the computational effort to recover the RSA key during this period. A key size in excess of this estimate will likely protect the asset.
Another example is a common scenario that is practiced without regard. An asset's value at the time of its creation is estimated (as it should be). The assumption is then made that most (or all) adversaries are not adversaries, but rather unaware or disinterested parties. The danger in this is that the information has some value over a horizon. If any unaware parties or disinterested parties move up the hierarchy and the information has not been protected, the asset becomes vulnerable. The estimated values may still be valid, but it is likely that new information has been made available and the impact of the original decision likely cannot be corrected.
I'm leaving out many factors that would help to protect the asset and attempting to provide a framework for which to discuss these concepts.
In summary, the decisions to hide or discover information can depend on a number of items. I recommend that the reader attempt to model a few scenarios that are outside of this scope. It is important to remember that many factors that are used to protect an asset require a significant amount of analysis to determine the means and capabilities of the originator and the adversary.
The following problems require knowledge of high school algebra.
Imagine that a new material has been invented that allows for a pipe that floats and does not stretch, contract or lose it’s shape in any way. Now further imagine that a pipe of this material has been placed around the equator of the earth. Let’s assume that the entire pipe is exactly at sea level for its entire length. We also know that the radius of the Earth is 3963 miles at sea level.
- What length of pipe would be needed to complete one revolution around the Earth from end to end?
Now ships need to travel the seas and are impeded by the pipe. Keep in mind that there are thousands of miles of pipe as calculated above.
- How much pipe needs to be added to raise the pipeline one foot above sea level?
- How much pipe needs to be added to raise the pipeline 180 feet above sea level so that 95% of all ocean traffic may pass underneath it?
Next, imagine that we finally colonize Mars and place a pipeline on the surface around its equator as well. We once again find ourselves in the position that surface traffic cannot pass through the pipeline.
- How much pipe is needed to raise the pipe on Mars 180 feet off of the surface?
Finally, we further colonize planets and moons in the solar system. We place pipelines at the equator of each celestial body continually making the mistake of placing the pipeline on the surface.
- Provide a general solution to this problem: How much pipe must be added to a pipeline to raise it N feet above the surface of the planet?
- Why is it unnecessary to know any dimensions of the planet (radius, circumference, etc.) to solve this problem?
bigH be jammin again on one of my favorite topics here (not the satire of the "be like the scalper" part, but the Euler Brick part). An Euler Brick is a cuboid that has all measurable sides of integral length and all diagonals, face diagonals and space diagonals, also of integral length.
So no one knows if these things exist mathematically, i.e. no one has discovered a solid in three dimensions that meets these criteria.
I for one think that the problem gets more interesting when more than three dimensions are used to define the cuboid (whereby it becomes an n-cuboid). ALL space and ALL face diagonals would be required to be of integral value.
Just a thought . . .