The most important impact of technology on communications security is that it draws better and better traffic into vulnerable channels. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
If you depend on a secret for your security, what do you do when the secret is discovered? If it is easy to change, like a cryptographic key, you do so. If it’s hard to change, like a cryptographic system or an operating system, you’re stuck. You will be vulnerable until you invest the time and money to design another system. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
It isn’t that secrets are never needed in security. It’s that they are never desirable. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
It’s simply unrealistic to depend on secrecy for security in computer software. You may be able to keep the exact workings of the program out of general circulation, but can you prevent the code from being reverse-engineered by serious opponents? Probably not. The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
The decisions we make about communication security today will determine the kind of society we live in tomorrow. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
I am not convinced that lack of encryption is the primary problem. The problem with the Internet is that it is meant for communications among non-friends. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
We have experienced an utter explosion in investigative techniques. Walk the streets, look at the cameras! They are now recognising people automatically from photos; we have DNA fingerprinting, infrascan photos that can identify you from the veins in your face. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
People are leaving trails everywhere they go; automated web crawlers tell you an awful lot about their social activities. The flow of information in fundamentally unobtrusive ways into social control organisations has risen dramatically. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
I think, and I’ve thought this for a long time, that we live, roughly speaking, in the last generation of human beings. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
I guess, in a very real sense, I’m a Gnostic. I had been looking all my life for some great mystery… I think somewhere deep in my mind is the notion that if I could learn just the right thing, I would be saved. Whitfield Diffie Read Quote
