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Cryptography is not Magic

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Don’t roll your own crypto. Broken crypto often looks like it works. The best way to build crypto is to learn how to break it. Use existing, vetted, well reviewed libraries. Leave it to the experts. Infosec people and their followers. The running theme seems to be that cryptography is a kind of Dark Magic, best left to anointed High Priests. Us mere Mortals cannot hope to wield it safely without first becoming one of those vaunted Experts — a futile endeavour for those of us who know their place. While being a good first order approximation, that kind of gate keeping is problematic on a number of levels. First, some people back in the real world have needs that current crypto systems don’t always fill. Insulting them with “you don’t know what you are doing” does not help. Second, it has a couple perverse effects: I would like to advocate a different approach. Cryptography has rules, which are both simpler and more fundamental than we might think. We could tell people what they don’t kn

July 2020 Cryptography is not Magic Don’t roll your own crypto. Broken crypto often looks like it works. The best way to build crypto is to learn how to break it. Use existing, vetted, well reviewed libraries. Leave it to the experts. Infosec people and their followers. The running theme seems to be that cryptography is a kind of Dark Magic, best left to anointed High Priests. Us mere Mortals cannot hope to wield it safely without first becoming one of those vaunted Experts — a futile endeavour for those of us who know their place. While being a good first order approximation, that kind of gat

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