New Space Race

[NecronLord]

Anything that can be encrpted can be decrypted.

True in theory. In practice, usually not. Twofish or AES with 448 bit keys would last for the lifetime of the system. It's rather computationally infeasible to break the key of a very large key symetric cipher.

Ah yes, but aside from breakthroughs in maths (no one noticed, but a couple of weeks ago they discovered a meathod for calculating all prime numbers, which cuts the security of most public key encryption into tiny pieces and burns all but one of said pieces) the major problem is that any moron can monitor a command signal and work back from there.

[Edi]

I understand that concept perfectly well, and so would the people planning that op. Do you really think they'd be stupid enough not to account for it? Published documents can contain somewhat incorrect info, or are you unaware of this possibility?

Edi

[phongn]

Has anyone considered how much of a liability it would be if some enemy got hold of the command system for this thing? Anything that can be encrpted can be decrypted.

You'd need to have incredible cryptologists at your beck and call to break what would almost assuredly be encryption at the level of nuclear command and control systems. Good luck.

Something as "simple" as TripleDES or AES would almost assuredly stop any attacker, nevermind milspec systems.

[NecronLord]

I understand that concept perfectly well, and so would the people planning that op. Do you really think they'd be stupid enough not to account for it? Published documents can contain somewhat incorrect info, or are you unaware of this possibility?

Edi

OK that was... random.

[phongn]

I understand that concept perfectly well, and so would the people planning that op. Do you really think they'd be stupid enough not to account for it? Published documents can contain somewhat incorrect info, or are you unaware of this possibility?

Edi

I'm fairly sure that Iceberg knows that. However, published information can be corraborated with actual launch data from DSP/SBIRS. Furthermore, satellite launches, while not rare, aren't everyday things either.

[phongn]

Anything that can be encrpted can be decrypted.

True in theory. In practice, usually not. Twofish or AES with 448 bit keys would last for the lifetime of the system. It's rather computationally infeasible to break the key of a very large key symetric cipher.

Ah yes, but aside from breakthroughs in maths (no one noticed, but a couple of weeks ago they discovered a meathod for calculating all prime numbers, which cuts the security of most public key encryption into tiny pieces and burns all but one of said pieces) the major problem is that any moron can monitor a command signal and work back from there.

How long does it take to calculate all those prime numbers? Even the proposed quantum computers only effectively break the keylength in half. Secondly, if you can monitor the command signal you only have a hash of ones and zeros, probably on a spread-spectrum burst-transit system if possible.

I seriously doubt that anyone is going to break these codes.

[NecronLord]

You'd need to have incredible cryptologists at your beck and call to break what would almost assuredly be encryption at the level of nuclear command and control systems. Good luck.

And China doesn't? I mean with 1/3 of the world population, how hard could it be?

[Iceberg]

Your persistence is admirable, Edi, but your intelligence lacks.

If the published info is falsified, then the satellite once released will not settle into the orbit predicted by NASA and the game is up.

You're done in by orbital mechanics. Not only are you in trouble for lying to us and destroying valuable government property, you're ALSO in trouble for displaying your blatant contempt for us by using a tactic so transparent that it might fool a blind man for a second or two if you're lucky.

[NecronLord]

How long does it take to calculate all those prime numbers?

You can be sure the NSA and their rivals across the world are at it even now. I'd give them a few months. (At most) In any case this has no relavance, as such a system would not be public key, and thus isn't restricted to prime-factoring.

[Patrick Degan]

Poor, poor, Degan... Did you not notice the word "exactly" printed entirely with capital letters? It was a simple request for greater detail than a muttered "other countries would attack us and stuff."

A pathetic comback, but not unexpected considering that you had no real argument in the first place.

A serious pre-emptive strike on the United States by a foreign power is impossible unless the attacker is willing to absorb a hail of nuclear warheads in return. You do remember that little "Cold War" thing we had a few years ago, right?

I also remember the Soviets knocking down one of our U2s and the Cubans downing another one during that period —neither action precipitating a general nuclear war. It's called "proportional response".

[phongn]

I also remember the Soviets knocking down one of our U2s and the Cubans downing another one during that period —neither action precipitating a general nuclear war. It's called "proportional response".

At least in Cuba, there was a plan to go nuclear if a spy plane was shot down, though it was vetoed.

Proportional response when dealing with nuclear powers is dangerous. In the case of the Soviet Union intercepting reconnaissance aircraft (e.g. RB-36, U-2) it was a clear violation of airspace, while this orbiting weapons platform is not (another posted noted that airspace only goes up to fifty miles). Things might just escalate out of control and that's a danger no country wants to risk.

[Beowulf]

How long does it take to calculate all those prime numbers?

You can be sure the NSA and their rivals across the world are at it even now. I'd give them a few months. (At most) In any case this has no relavance, as such a system would not be public key, and thus isn't restricted to prime-factoring.

Even if it was, it's rather difficult to factor out the key, without holding one of the keys...

[Howedar]

You'd need to have incredible cryptologists at your beck and call to break what would almost assuredly be encryption at the level of nuclear command and control systems. Good luck.

And China doesn't? I mean with 1/3 of the world population, how hard could it be?

1/6 ish.

[Patrick Degan]

Proportional response when dealing with nuclear powers is dangerous. In the case of the Soviet Union intercepting reconnaissance aircraft (e.g. RB-36, U-2) it was a clear violation of airspace, while this orbiting weapons platform is not (another posted noted that airspace only goes up to fifty miles). Things might just escalate out of control and that's a danger no country wants to risk.

Maybe so. But proportional response is a better policy than a Tripwire doctrine or "all or nothing". After all, nobody wants to start a general war over the downing of one military unit.

[phongn]

Proportional response when dealing with nuclear powers is dangerous. In the case of the Soviet Union intercepting reconnaissance aircraft (e.g. RB-36, U-2) it was a clear violation of airspace, while this orbiting weapons platform is not (another posted noted that airspace only goes up to fifty miles). Things might just escalate out of control and that's a danger no country wants to risk.

Maybe so. But proportional response is a better policy than a Tripwire doctrine or "all or nothing". After all, nobody wants to start a general war over the downing of one military unit.

Of course no-body wants to start a war (hence why Kennedy did not flatten Cuba and why Krushchev did not press things very far at all). And while we could argue that the downing of what is arguably a strategic weapons system will only weight a proportional response, nobody is going to take that risk. They'll probably accept the orbiting satellites of doom, and if war ever comes then they'll knock the fool things down.

[phongn]

You'd need to have incredible cryptologists at your beck and call to break what would almost assuredly be encryption at the level of nuclear command and control systems. Good luck.

And China doesn't? I mean with 1/3 of the world population, how hard could it be?

What do you mean how hard could it be? Even with a sixth of the world population they can only have a relative few trained cryptologists. How much effort did the belligerant powers in World War II pour into crypto for (by modern standards) relatively simple codes? Don't bring up this strawman that "lots of people == not too hard to break codes."

As for the prime number thing, do you have a link?

[NecronLord]

What do you mean how hard could it be? Even with a sixth of the world population they can only have a relative few trained cryptologists.

Source?

How much effort did the belligerant powers in World War II pour into crypto for (by modern standards) relatively simple codes?

Relatively little. Britain did, the others did not. That is a false analogy, cryptology has advanced in the field of cracking codes as well as generating them

As for the prime number thing, do you have a link?

Aside from the fact that it has no relevence to this type of encyption, but to commercial encyption. Yes:

The BBC
Nature

Though frankly this is a minor technicallity, the means of obtaining codes are myriad, the general principle is the same. No code is unbreakeable.

[Pu-239]

What about the variation of the unbreakable one time pad? Use two entangled particles, which would vary randomly, but would be syncronized as the entropy to combine with the signals you want to encrypt? Probably too fragile though. Or you could always install a hard drive with hundreds of gigabytes of stuff for the random data, and have a clone of the hard drive on the ground. The satellite will probably stop working by the time you run out of entropy data, and you probably don't need that much if you only need unbreakable encryption for the firing command, not any steering commands or anything like that.

[Sea Skimmer]

I also remember the Soviets knocking down one of our U2s and the Cubans downing another one during that period —neither action precipitating a general nuclear war. It's called "proportional response".

Among other reasons because both aircraft where violating the airspace of another nation. Satellites don't do so.

[phongn]

What do you mean how hard could it be? Even with a sixth of the world population they can only have a relative few trained cryptologists.

Source?

Conjecture, but with the amount of training and the education it requires, it is a highly reasonable assumption. Furthermore, any information on the actual number of crypto people in the PRC is highly like to classified by their government, so I can't give hard numbers here.

Just because they have a sizable amount of people does not mean that they suddenly have a leg up.

Though frankly this is a minor technicallity, the means of obtaining codes are myriad, the general principle is the same. No code is unbreakeable.

While no code (other than a properly-secured one time pad) is unbreakable, you can make it so difficult that breaking it in any reasonable amount of time becomes impossible.

[phongn]

Ah yes, but aside from breakthroughs in maths (no one noticed, but a couple of weeks ago they discovered a meathod for calculating all prime numbers, which cuts the security of most public key encryption into tiny pieces and burns all but one of said pieces) the major problem is that any moron can monitor a command signal and work back from there.

The article does not say that they can find all prime numbers, did it? Only a pattern.

[Pu-239]

*sigh*. No one ever replies to what I say.

[Beowulf]

The articals say nothing about making it easier to find to find primes in general, just in specific cases.

You'd probably not want to use a harddisk in a satelite, do tothe accelerations involved destroying the disk...

[Pu-239]

The articals say nothing about making it easier to find to find primes in general, just in specific cases.

You'd probably not want to use a harddisk in a satelite, do tothe accelerations involved destroying the disk...

Well they have sent laptops up in space. Well if the HDD can't take shock, you could always put some optical drive up there, or store stuff in ROM chips (though you would need a lot of those). There's also that electromechanical storage chip with huge capacity/size coming up. You probably don't need hundreds of gigabytes just for simple firing commands. You would have to devise a way to keep both drives synchronized though, using the same portion of the disk for encryption/decryption, in case some signal doesn't get through. That part should be easy though.

[Patrick Degan]

And while we could argue that the downing of what is arguably a strategic weapons system will only weight a proportional response, nobody is going to take that risk. They'll probably accept the orbiting satellites of doom, and if war ever comes then they'll knock the fool things down.

Perhaps. However, if the decision was made to preemptively knock down a SPECTRE Deathbeam Platform™, it would not be the same as hitting a military base on the opponnent's home territory, nor would it entail any risk to civilians within that territory. Otherwise, the likely response is to place orbital cannisters in the SDP's pathway, which could be detonated anytime. And the cannisters would certainly be a simpler and cheaper deterrent to the weapons platforms.