Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • November 26, 2024 9:10 AM

This is in effect a “throw your turn” game like “snakes and ladders”.

You all take one or two steps forwards in turn. In general you both progress, but sometimes you fall back down a lot.

There is in effect only three ways to reliably not loose,

1, Cheat any which way you can (timeless advice).
2, Remove your opponent from the board (many millennium old advice).
3, Do not play (1983 advice).

The cheating is seen by many as “bad” but turns to “good” when the opponent is “bad”. This suggests a campaign of,

“Blacken their name in every ones eyes”

Is more than “half the battle”, hence the continuous dog whistles of guard labour and their masters of,

“Think of the Children”

And worse, used to make those who only want privacy look evil in every way possible. It’s in effect a form of jury tampering in that the aim is to not allow a fair trial (game).

Another way is to stop an opponent playing, the modern version is by legislation, prosecution and incarceration. The problem is that the second two steps never happen to Guard Labour, where it’s more likely to be rewarded with promotion.

Which leaves “Do not play”. There are four basic ways to do this,

1, Don’t have any communications at all.
2, Use a method of communication that is not amenable to an opponents attack.
3, Don’t use the phone in any bad way.
4, Have a phone or communications system beyond your opponents capabilities.

In the modern world the first way is I’m repeatedly told “not practical”, which is odd as it certainly was for the first quarter of my life as the technology did not realistically exist and later not for ordinary folk.

The second way has many forms but secure communications was known about in the Victorian era. Where the first steps to making it easy to use by automation were in development.

The third “don’t do anything bad” advice is actually fairly pointless other than “faux appeasement”. Because there are always those who get to chose if you are bad or not, not by your actions but by their desires and dictates.

The fourth way stops the collection of actual evidence and thus is hated by guard labour and the like that have to show in public you are “bad” in front of supposedly impartial arbiters of truth like a jury.

Which is why this sort of game is also one of “cat and mouse” and staying ahead means using your opponents strengths against them as well as exploiting any weaknesses they might have.

They in turn try to “up their game” at every turn and learn not just by your actions but the actions of others.

In effect,

“You have to not loose every time, they have to only win once.”

As for a “no score draw” or similar where neither wins, that’s a fairly significant warning it’s,

“Time to be some other place, doing something entirely different, if you want to survive.”

If you can not “be somewhere else” or “doing something else” then you need several entirely different game plays in reserve with a rapid way to switch to them.

One thing is certain, if you in effect,

“Stand still and so the kill”

You will not remain free or unharmed very long.

In effect this game is another version of,

“The hamster wheel of pain”

Worse even than “The Red Queen’s Race”.

Thus I hate to say it but the best tactic by use of resources etc is to take not “the opponent out of the game” but those the opponent is very much dependent upon.

If those who design, make and sell “GreyKey” cease to be suppliers of necessary updated resources then the opponent becomes in effect a static player and roles are reversed.

There are various ways to do this, one is to blacken their and similar organisations names to the point that making what they do, not just illegal, but subject to actual meaningful punishment of individuals such that they actually feel in fear if they go down the path, that they have formerly seen as profitable.