mgraffam@mhv.net writes:
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On 28 Mar 1998, Julian Assange wrote:
Rubber-hose-squad: We will never be able to show that Alice has revealed the last of her keys. Further, even if Alice has co-operated fully and has revealed all of her keys, she will not be able to prove it. Therefor, we must assume that at every stage that Alice has kept secret information from us, and continue to beat her, even though she may have revealed the last of her keys. But the whole time we will feel uneasy about this because Alice may have co-operated fully.
I've never really fully understood this assumption. It seems to me that any person or group that would beat a person isn't going to care much if Alice cooperated or not.
All things considered, a group with enough power to grab Alice and beat her probably has ways to escape punishment from the law, or doesn't care about the law in the first place.
In this case, I figure that their best option is to beat Alice everyday forever or until she dies. Whichever comes first.
"Rubber hose" cryptanalysis needn't involve actual beatings in secret underground cells. Simple example: Cops raid your house, rough you up a little bit (not much) and toss your ass in a cell with "real ' criminals. 12 hours later they take you into a room and play good cop/bad cop with you. Maybe you're not sure you could stand up to this, and might panic and reveal more than you have to (remember, you haven't been charged with a crime yet). However, if you do hold out, the chances that you'll be let go, and get your stuff back in a few years, are pretty high. In this case, being able to spill a key that revelas harmless stuff is good, since the police are unlekely to hold you for a long time. "Dissapearing" is the regressive case, and there's not a whole lot you can do in regressive cases. If someone really wants to defect, they will. Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole