#Trusting obscurity password#
Should I password protect / use keys for my SSH connection? Absolutely. The thing to realize is that you never want to count on obscurity but it certainly never hurts. On the flip side if they can see exactly the algorithm used yet still cannot practically do anything we see the ideal security situation. If you are relying on them 'not seeing your algorithm' by using something like a ROT13 cipher it's terrible. Cryptography is a perfect example of this.
#Trusting obscurity full#
You want your system to be complete secure if someone knew the full workings of it, apart from the key secret component that you control.
It's actually not, security only through obscurity is terrible. The misconception that you're having is that security through obscurity is bad. Obviously, encryption schemes which have been proven to be vulnerable shouldn't be used, so sometimes it's more clear than others, but what I'm struggling with is how I know where the conventional wisdom does and doesn't apply.īecause, at first blush, it's perfectly clear, but when I actually try to extrapolate a hard-and-fast, consistently applicable algorithm for vetting ideas, I run into problems. what's worth implementing) from the bad (what isn't)? Now, I know the first circumstance (that someone would think to check nonstandard ports for a particular service) is far more likely than the second (that someone would randomly guess a cryptographic key), but is likelihood really the entire difference?Īnd, if so, how am I (an infosec n00b, if that isn't already abundantly clear) supposed to be able to tell the good (i.e. It relies on the hope that an attacker won't think to guess the correct cryptographic key. However, all SSH is doing is obscuring information. You're just counting on the other person to not check for that.
Someone said using SSH on a nonstandard port counts as security through obscurity. I checked other questions relating tangentially to this, and was unable to figure out the precise difference. His landscapes look so natural that it is hard to see the hand of the artist at work.Īs the man behind England’s green and pleasant land, Brown almost damned himself to historical obscurity through creating a product so good, subsequent generations of visitors have given nature herself the credit.Įighteen of Brown’s landscapes are in the care of the National Trust.So, I keep finding the conventional wisdom that 'security through obscurity is no security at all', but I'm having the (perhaps stupid) problem of being unable to tell exactly when something is 'good security' and when something is just 'obscure'. What Shakespeare has done for English letters, so Capability Brown has done for English landscape.
He developed lifelong friendships with some clients, like Lord Coventry at Croome, and between 17 held contracts to the value of £320,000 – approximately £718 million in today’s money. Lancelot Brown, nicknamed ‘Capability’, due to his habit of describing the great ‘capabilities’ of his clients landscapes, was the most successful landscape gardener of the eighteenth century. The landscape was designed to encourage eighteenth century leisure pursuits including hunting, shooting and carriage-riding. They comprised sweeping pasture bordered with tree clumps, perimeter shelter belts and screens of trees. Just as important was Lord Cobham’s address book, and Brown soon started work for a range of aristocrats and politicians connected to Cobham and his friend William Pitt, including George Grenville at Wotton, Lord Egremont at Petworth.īrown’s landscapes were simple, uncluttered and restrained. As head gardener from 1741, Brown was responsible for developing the Grecian Valley. His big break came through Lord Cobham at Stowe, which throughout the eighteenth-century was a laboratory for experimenting with different types of landscape and gardening styles.
#Trusting obscurity professional#
Born in Northumberland in 1716, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown rose through the ranks of Georgian society through a combination of professional talent and excellent connections to become King George III’s royal gardener in 1764 complete with the grace-and-favour Wilderness House at Hampton Court.