Elon Musk issues warning about widely-used modern device: ‘Not safe’

[roamer_1]

Even that can be broken.

Use tin cans with string - the only safe method.

Well, yes and no...

128bit encryption can be cracked, but it is seldom worth it. Especially encrypted containers, where you have no idea the size of the files inside.

Shoot, even archaic .arj compression is such a drag to crack that it is seldom worth doing. You CAN brute force an .arj but it will take a loooooong time, even on modern computers.

Most folks don't have access to world class crackers and encryption freaks. Your average LEO ain't gonna have the stones.

[catfish1957]

Well, yes and no...

128bit encryption can be cracked, but it is seldom worth it. Especially encrypted containers, where you have no idea the size of the files inside.

Shoot, even archaic .arj compression is such a drag to crack that it is seldom worth doing. You CAN brute force an .arj but it will take a loooooong time, even on modern computers.

Most folks don't have access to world class crackers and encryption freaks. Your average LEO ain't gonna have the stones.

And still they couldn't crack Crook's phone   

[bigheadfred]

Geez. Any teenager who ever was party to a party line knew you should talk in code for sensitive conversations. It was baked in using any phone after that.   

[roamer_1]

And still they couldn't crack Crook's phone   

The feds can crack most things, but because they have a government mandated back door. Any software that gets big enough to matter is leaned on until the door is provided. One of the pioneers in encrypted container software was TrueCrypt, which was discontinued with their publisher's page issuing a banner warning that TrueCrypt was no longer secure.

They got to him. He folded it up.

[Hoodat]

“Phones are not safe,” Musk tweeted

[The_Reader_David]

Even that can be broken.

One-time-pad encryption can only be broken if the attacker gains access to the key, meaning physical access to your stuff if you and the person you are communicating with hand each other the keys.  Look up the phrase "perfect security". If one doesn't have access to the key the only thing you can learn from the encrypted message is an upper bound on the length of the original message (not even the length, since some nulls could be added to the actual message). 

[Hoodat]

One-time-pad encryption can only be broken if the attacker gains access to the key, meaning physical access to your stuff if you and the person you are communicating with hand each other the keys.  Look up the phrase "perfect security". If one doesn't have access to the key the only thing you can learn from the encrypted message is an upper bound on the length of the original message (not even the length, since some nulls could be added to the actual message).

The only example of 'perfect security' I know of is when sender and receiver have a key that no one else knows about - a key long enough to cypher the entire message.

For example:

message:  10010101001
key:          11100100101
cypher:     01110001100

The problem here is that both the sender and receiver must already have the key.  But how does the sender pass the key to the receiver without anyone else seeing it?

Any other cypher can be hacked by brute force.  Eventually.  Sure, it may take 20 million years with today's processing time.  But it is still possible.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

The only example of 'perfect security' I know of is when sender and receiver have a key that no one else knows about - a key long enough to cypher the entire message.

For example:

message:  10010101001
key:          11100100101
cypher:     01110001100

The problem here is that both the sender and receiver must already have the key.  But how does the sender pass the key to the receiver without anyone else seeing it?

Any other cypher can be hacked by brute force.  Eventually.  Sure, it may take 20 million years with today's processing time.  But it is still possible.

That's basically public private key encryption and it's really not unbreakable. One time pad, assuming the pad is truly random, is unbreakable through code-breaking in and of itself (other methods are still possible).

[MeganC]

Any other cypher can be hacked by brute force. 

Old fashioned book ciphers are incredibly difficult to crack especially when they use out of print books.

The way it works is I mail you say, five different out-of-print books. I number them 1 to 5. I have five identical books. Same edition. Same printing.

Then on my first message to you I select my words and identify them by (page)(line down/up on the page)(word left/right) taking care not to reuse any selected word from the book.

So my message to you would look like:

365-12-4  13-17-8 35-1-3 (and etc.)

You'd have the corresponding book to use to decrypt the message. It would be extremely unlikely that anyone else would have the same key.

You would write back to me using the next book and so on.