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Security through obscurity is rarely a winning tactic.
by late2part 10y ago
Security through obscurity is rarely a winning tactic.
- simplify 10y agoAll security is some form of obscurity, is it not?
- mlmlmasd 10y agoI can't really think of any good forms of 'security through obscurity'. Is the elimination of buffer overflow vulns and sql injections a form of obscurity? Is SSL a form of obscurity?
- simplify 10y agoSSL is based on obscure prime numbers. Another example is user passwords (obscure text). Sessions and API tokens, too. Credit card numbers, garage door openers, and SIM cards all rely on hidden information. Even door locks are a physical form of hidden keys. But you're right, there are some forms of security that don't require obscurity. For voting systems though, I would categorize them as "cat and mouse" systems, which unfortunately fall into the obscurity category.
- pvg 10y agoNo. That's not what the phrase means.
- pvg 10y agoThis may be true for locks and cryptography but a message board is not really a 'security system' nor does it fail completely and catastrophically if someone manages to figure out the details of the ranking algorithm or spam countermeasures.
- dang 10y agoThat's only true when it's known how to publicly secure something.