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In mathematics, a proof is the demonstration of an absolute truth, but in #crypto, a proof is only the demonstration of a relative truth.
One issue is with the phrase “proof of security” itself. In mathematics, a proof is the demonstration of an absolute truth, but in crypto, a proof is only the demonstration of a relative truth. For example, a proof that your cipher is as hard to break as it is to compute discrete logarithms—finding the number x given g and gx mod n—guarantees that if your cipher fails, a whole lot of other ciphers will fail as well, and nobody will blame you if the worst happens. #cryptography #cryptographicsecurity #security #africa #cybersecurity #socialmedia
Heuristic Security
Provable security is a great tool to gain confidence in a crypto scheme, but it doesn’t apply to all kinds of algorithms. In fact, most symmetric ciphers don’t have a security proof. For example, every day we rely on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to securely communicate using our mobile phones, laptops, and desktop computers, but AES is not provably secure; there’s no proof that it’s as hard to break as some well-known problem. AES can’t be related to a math problem or to another algorithm because it is the hard problem itself.
In cases where provable security doesn’t apply, the only reason to trust a cipher is because many skilled people tried to break it and failed. This is sometimes called heuristic security. #security