Goal: Explain how, in cryptography, one must do their best not to imagine sock puppets instead of real adversaries.
- e4 e5
- Bc4 Nc6
- Qh5 g6
"That's not fair! If you did Nf6 or, really, almost anything else, I would go Qxf7 and check-mate you!"
"Life's not fair. You've been stung by wishful thinking."
"What would you do if you were Prof. Krankenstein?"
"Well, it's apparently impossible to get the documents. They are too well guarded. Maybe it would be possible to hijack Russian president instead and exchange him for the documents?"
"Would that work?"
"Probably not. He must be guarded pretty well as well."
"No, I mean, assume that you've successfully hijacked him. Would it work then?"
"I don't see why not."
"Think about it for a minute. Who are you going to negotiate with?"
"With vice-president. Or vice-tzar. Or whatever they have there."
"With man No.2, in short."
X had though silently for a while: "Aaaah, I see. When the president was hijacked vice-president turned into man No.1. If the hostage is returned he drops back to No.2 position. He may have second thoughts."
"Exactly. And, what's worse, he can reject the trade without losing face. He can just say he's not going to negotiate with terrorists."
Y scratched his nose and continued: "Too bad. You haven't been looking for a real solution. You've been looking for something that just SOUNDS like a solution. Something that could have worked in an action movie."
Transcript:
A crypto nerd's imagination.
A: His laptop's encrypted. Let's build a million-dollar cluster to track it.
B: No good! It's 4096-bit RSA!
A: Blast! Our evil plan is foiled!
What would actually happen.
A: His laptop's encrypted. Drug him a hit him with this $5 wrench until he tells us the password.
B: Got it.