53cur!ty 6109

As Roger put it to me after the workshop, “We’ve got to adjust some of our threat models.” In other words: internet cryptographers aren’t generally worried about parabolic microphones. They’re trying to enable secure transmissions in an insecure medium - the Internet - and generally assume that the people using their tools have control over their computers and the environments they’re using them in. In other words, while security researchers talk a lot about “Alice” and “Bob”, those crazy kids trying to send messages to each other without eavesdropper “Eve” listening in, we rarely consider secret policeman “Sam” arresting Alice and breaking her fingers until she caves and gives up her contact list. And if you want these tools to work in the real world, those are the sorts of concerns you have to take very seriously.

Source