- In
this month's crypto-gram Bruce Schneier points out - Authentication is more important than encryption. Most people's security intuition says exactly the opposite, but it's true. Imagine a situation where Alice and Bob are using a secure communications channel to exchange data. Consider how much damage an eavesdropper could do if she could read all the traffic. Then think about how much damage Eve could do if she could modify the data being exchanged. In most situations, modifying data is a devastating attack, and does far more damage than merely reading it.
It's interesting that we hear about intercepted communications, but we don't hear about forged communications. I wonder to what extent forged communications are used to misdirect enemy forces in modern warfare? A lot, I would guess. First you hit the 'command and control' structures, then you seamlessly replace them with your own. Maybe that's what's happened to us... Maybe George Bush wasn't even running for President!
Or maybe FNORD we're getting FNORD email about the forged communications FNORD all the time FNORD!
I played with Terragen a bit more yesterday and today. I spent more time on lighting, clouds, and water. The picture looks a bit weird, actually. I've realized one other limitation of the program. It develops a landscape (using a model of erosion) and then inundates it with water. In geological processes, however, landscapes reach an equilibrium with the water: waves erode benches into the shore and streams deposit sediment creating deltas. In Terragen all of the landforms are newly submerged and so the shores have an unreal quality about them. I also only now realize that there are no streams or waterfalls in Terragen.
Note these are not complaints about Terragen -- far from it. Just observations on the complexity of what's being modeled and how easy it is to recognize a simulated terrain. Here's the picture I made this time:
http://revo.bierfaristo.com/images/terragen/myplace3.png
Tonight I'm going to the Amherst Brewing Company to see the Funk and Monk Jazz Band. Last fall, I was teaching with Buzz and every week, after class, we would go out for a couple of beers after class to discuss what had worked and what we needed to do better. I remember telling Randy how much fun it was and he remarked, "Yeah. You know, I used to have these things called 'friends' and..." In any case, Randy called and invited me to go to ABC to hear the jazz band.