3 ms·

dang, that violate's Kerckhoffs's principle: "A system should be secure even if everything about the system is public knowledge." Security through obscurity. h

• dang 11y ago
  Yes, but we don't know how to secure an internet forum in that sense. You mentioned that you're working on an HN clone. Perhaps you'll figure this out.
• tptacek 11y ago
  Kerckhoff's Principle holds only if the adversary's cost are unbounded. In reality, there's almost always a cost ceiling tied in some way to the value of the target. In other words: you are welcome to spend unlimited hours and dollars finding and exploiting the flaws in HN's ranking model simply to prove a point, but hopefully, you have better things to do. Similarly, the HN team has better things to do than investing resources to defeat the (unlikely) adversaries who harness both skill and irrationality. (This wrinkle of Kerckhoff's Principle comes up a lot in systems security work, which is why I was moved to comment about it.)
• Tomte 11y ago
  Kerckhoff is only directly relevant to cryptosystems, but the related notion of "security by obscurity" comes up again and again. And it's usually a sign that the one trying to shut down a discussion with this argument is wrong. :-) Usual forum scenario: changing your SSH port to a non-standard port is security by obscurity and doesn't do anything. Usual reply: it doesn't cost me anything (except a few minutes of my time), but may keep a non-sophisticated attacker out – think some automated script kiddie software.