Read the excerpt from The Code Book.Although traffic analysis, tempest attacks, viruses and Trojan horses are all useful techniques for gathering information, cryptanalysts realize that their real goal is to find a way of cracking the RSA cipher, the cornerstone of modern encryption.The RSA cipher is used to protect the most important military, diplomatic, commercial and criminal communications—exactly the messages that intelligence gathering organizations want to decipher. If they are to challenge strong RSA encryption, cryptanalysts will need to make a major theoretical or technological breakthrough.
Read the excerpt from The Code Book.The Trojan horse, another software trick, involves Eve designing a program that appears to act like a genuine encryption product, but which actually betrays the user.
One of the author’s purposes in The Code Book is to explain different types of codebreaking to his readers. Which line best demonstrates this purpose?
Read the excerpt from The Code Book.Other attacks include the use of viruses and Trojan horses. Eve might design a virus that infects PGP software and sits quietly inside Alice's computer. When Alice uses her private key to decrypt a message, the virus would wake up and make a note of it. The next time that Alice connects to the Internet, the virus would surreptitiously send the private key to Eve, thereby allowing her to decipher all subsequent messages sent to Alice.
Review the excerpt from The Code Book.In 1998, a report by Wayne Madsen revealed that the Swiss cryptographic company Crypto AG had built backdoors into some of its products, and had provided the U.S. Government with details of how to exploit these backdoors. As a result, America was able to read the communications of several countries. In 1991 the assassins who killed Shahpour Bakhtiar, the exiled former Iranian prime minister, were caught thanks to the interception and backdoor decipherment of Iranian messages encrypted using Crypto AG equipment.
Jac is reading this paragraph from The Code Book.Mathematicians have been studying factoring for centuries, and modern factoring techniques are not significantly better than ancient techniques. Indeed, it could be that the laws of mathematics forbid the existence of a significant shortcut for factoring.
Read the excerpt from The Code Book.Despite the enormous strength of RSA and other modern ciphers, cryptanalysts are still able to play a valuable role in intelligence gathering. Their success is demonstrated by the fact that cryptanalysts are in greater demand than ever before—the NSA is still the world's largest employer of mathematicians.
A central idea in The Code Book is the concern that much of the world’s information is not secure. Which lines from the passage best support this central idea? Check all that apply.it could be that the laws of mathematics forbid the existence of a significant shortcut only a small fraction of the information flowing around the world is securely encryptedcompanies are already supplying shielding material that can be used to line the walls of a room few of these people take adequate precautions in terms of privacylaw enforcers and anybody else with a curious mind can get their hands on more information
Heidi has a writing assignment to connect The Code Book to her own life. Which line from her assignment best demonstrates Heidi’s connection with the text?
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