13:48 Bruce Schneier "why do we accept signatures by fax?» | |
| Guru cryptography, developer ciphers Blowfish and Twofish, Bruce Schneier in his blog discusses the interesting topic: why, with all the mistrust of the documents transmitted by e-mail, many organizations rely on signatures to a fax? It's the strangest thing that you can only imagine. Indeed, to forge them there is no difficulty: it is enough to cut one piece of paper, pasted on the other - and send it by fax. You do not need anything except scissors and glue. Can handle even a child. Faxes are so poorly protected against forgery, that if you think - it is strange that in our time, someone generally accepts them. Bruce Schneier says that he repeatedly sent by fax various documents, including contracts for the book, bank documents on the credit card authorization, non-disclosure agreement, etc. "It's amazing how organizations sometimes tend to perceive as verified these low-quality, neverifitsirovannye scans, which are transmitted over public communication lines, if they flatly refuse to accept the same information in the form of high-resolution scans (relatively safe) e-mail" - surprised Bruce Schneier. Reflecting on this phenomenon, Bruce Schneier concludes that the relative security of faxing is perceived at the level of human psychology only in the broad communication contexts. Almost always, fax copies are only part of a large transactional scheme, which employs a much more reliable system of verification. However, strange people's trust faxes sometimes manifests itself in full. For example, on Oct. 30, 2004 from prison in Memphis, was released early inmate Tristan Wilson, after prison officials received a fax allegedly from the local police station (actually a fax sent to Wilson's associates from the nearby McDonald's). As always, says Bruce Schneier, the weakest in almost any system - this is human psychology. By the way, recently cryptography guru has even written a book about the human brain. | |
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