I thought this would be about deadlifting.
Real question: why?
I had a similar thought, along the lines of https://xkcd.com/538/
Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
11–20 of 72 posts
Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Real question: why?
I had a similar thought, along the lines of https://xkcd.com/538/
That's funny. I thought of a different XKCD. Deadlifting for a brute force-attack. https://xkcd.com/37/
Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#13Speaking of physically immune schemes, I remember some protocol which relied on a gigantic amount of data present behind a link that was, on purpose, very low bandwidth (physically low bandwidth: not by software as in rate limitation. That was the whole point: the link was physically low bandwidth). So the data was impossible to exfiltrate remotely: it simply wasn't physically possible to do remotely (it would be way…
>I forgot the name and what the data was used to protect/derive: maybe some authentication scheme?
It's a variant of salted passwords, where the "salt" is a huge file that sits on a server somewhere. To validate any given password, it only requires accessing a few bytes that are deterministically but randomly determined. This isn't a problem when validating passwords, but if you're an attacker trying to exfiltrate the file (so you can run offline bruteforce attacks on it), the huge file becomes prohibitively expensive to exfiltrate.
Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#14I thought this would be about deadlifting.
I know you're making a pun, but I will say one big benefit of deadlifting is a lot of things that would cause back-pain no longer do so. You don't have to lift a whole lot either, just enough to start building back muscles, and all of a sudden I can do things that would normally produce endless lower back pain.
Or, if you're like me, it can be the start of your back pain!
Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#15This is probably a decent estimate, but there's a couple of routes of attack it fails to account for.
First it uses the current average temperature of the universe. Lowering the temperature can be done by just waiting a while before turning the machine on. I assume that powering a sufficiently powerful fridge is not an option, given the origin of the theoretical limit, but I can't quite point out why it wouldn't work.
Secondly it assumes that an unsuccessful attempt must flip at least some bits in an semi-permanent manner. This is obviously true of all current computers, but doesn't have to be true for all possible apparatuses. A specialized hyper-efficient password cracking system should be expected to get below this limit. Will we ever build one? Who knows.
Arguably this latter 'loop-hole' is just pointing out that quantum computers or more efficient algorithms could do better, so maybe we should absorb it into the definition of 'brute-force'.
Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a similar thought, along the lines of https://xkcd.com/538/
That's funny. I thought of a different XKCD. Deadlifting for a brute force-attack. https://xkcd.com/37/
Since we're doing "XKCD's relevant to the intersection of deadlifting and cryptography" - https://xkcd.com/189/
Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#17Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Real question: why?
I had a similar thought, along the lines of https://xkcd.com/538/
That's the closest link I could think of, but "deadlifting" is at best a very specific and small step toward the implicit goal of "become immune to all physical harm". It doesn't make sense, so I figure there has to be something I'm missing.
Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#19I suspect this can be bypassed with knowledge about the size of the target system. Intuitively, there are a finite number of passwords that can be stored on earth, so a large enough system should be able to enumerate them? Whilst also existing in the observable universe.
By "target system" you mean "system from which the password originated", right? But unless you think true randomness is impossible, and also that all possible sources of pseudo-random input on Earth come from terrestrial sources and not, say, incoming cosmic radiation, then knowing the size of the "Earth" system is no constraint at all. A heuristic for focusing your search, maybe, if you think the password is likely…
> By "target system" you mean "system from which the password originated", right?
Yeah that’s correct.
> The phrase "stored on Earth" is a red herring. You don't need to store all possible passwords for those passwords to be possible to generate here.
A password used to protect a system must be persistently stored inside that system.
The number of passwords that can be generated on earth is greater than the number that can be persistently stored on earth.
For example, an iPhone must locally store a user’s unlock PIN code. However, it could theoretically generate a 20TB password for an external site in chunks without ever storing the full password locally.
Energy is a binding for password generation; but size is a constraint for password storage, which likely kicks in a lot earlier.
Re: Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks (2021)
#20Now do the wrench attack.
Freezing doesn’t always work for me while I’m at the dentist.
Does that help me build resistance to physical torture?