Schneier on Security

@ Jeddah,

I'm a bit confused, if this has anything to do with the subconscious at all. Or maybe I don't understand the concept of subconsciousness

Don't worry it's not you it's mainly other peoples "not thought out view of the world".

Nearly every thing we do is actually a subconcious act, for example bending a finger, lifting a foot or blinking, we don't think "tighten muscle X, relax muscle Y untill...". Some are virtualy fully autonomous (sneezing, blinking, dilating of the eyes) some less so. The usual distinction between autonomous and learned subconcious actions is what a new born child can do is effectivly autonomous and things like tying your shoe laces, riding a bike,driving a car are learned with various stages inbetween. But importantly even what is regarded as "autonomous" can be over ridden with training, most people can learn to not blink for a few moments to do silly things like out stare a cat or other people, or hold their breath to swim under water. Others have got it to the point where they have almost full control over their heart rate (which is exceptionaly difficult I can only do it a small amount after years of trying).

The problem arises with authentication (authN) quite often and it's the grey area between "something you know" (pass word/phrase) and "something you are" (finger print, iris/retina). It is further complicated by people not fundementaly understanding what is tangible (physical) and intangible (information)

And this is where the problem arises because you can be compled by judge/thug to reveal your password because they regard it (incorrectly) as a tangible item like a telephone number or address that is made tangible by being writen down and most people remember it by reciting it in their heads [1]. Likewise you can be compeled by judge/thug to produce/use something tangabile and therefore measurable like a fingerprint or retina scan.

What they fail to realise or fail to acknowledge is that the subconcious alows things to be intangable and not directly measurable with current and possibly future technology (which is another idiotic reason why people have faith in lie detectors).

Further they likewise fail to acknowledge that people are different in many ways though it's obvious. For instance some people can play a given musical instrument moderatly well whilst others cann't, and there are some very few who can play an instrument exceptionaly well whilst just a very few can play instruments from different groups (strings/wind/percussion) exceptionaly well. It's the same with all things that require "fine motor control" including nearly all the "arts" and "sports".

We talk about people being "naturals" and this is usually not true, it usually means they learnt the required fine motor skills whilst very very young whilst others did not. Even very young babies can be taught to catch a ball whilst some fairly normal adults couldn't catch a ball if you droped it into their open hand. I for instance usually couldn't throw an apple core in the bin from the other side of the desk yet I learnt to put bullets and arrows on target exceptionaly well at the limit of their ranges as an adult, I didn't learn to ride a bike untill I was a rather large and somewhat clumsy adult yet I taught myself to ride a uni-cycle safely on roads for distances of over sixty miles and got upto competitive standards in (two wheel) cycling and sailing. They are all "learned skills" as is driving and the standard you reach is mainly determined by how far you are prepared to go to become good at it not inate ability (though that does help you get to the point where a skill becomes just about usable more quickly so lowers the frustration bar).

[1] : Some people remember words others paterns, for instance the word "fred" can be remembered as a word or as a simple patern on the querty keyboard of "make a square going up and left from the f key" thus a hard to remember as a charecter string "zexctvbun" might be remembered as words by "Zen EXeCuTive V BUN" or as the simple sawtooth wave form from left to right on the querty keyboard [2]. In the military often the number to dial on a safe is done by remembering a simple word such as "apple" and remebering a few simple rules to convert the letters into numbers/actions.

[2] : it's been shown that people who are proficient in typing do it the same way most people write, which is not letter by letter but as a remembered sequence of actions for the word [3]

[3] : This has been shown to be the same for musicians they don't remember the notes they remember the tune and the musical score is almost just an aid memoir [4].

[4] : Most people remember tunes from singing/whisteling along a few times and could not tell you the notes or cadence or anything else that you could write down [5]ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
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