PK have any organization concerned with eaves dropping, secure communications, cryptanalysis etc… like Uk has GCHQ and NSA for US
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
I believe that ISI must be doing it if at all they have the capacity to do it, but as a separate organization i am not sure
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
^yes thats right, the ISI/MI and IB all have various cells speacializing in particualr fields.
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
Any more details. Any ads for posts their? considering PK had to ask NSA to eavesdrop on emails in Daniel Pearl case I would have thought they would realise their faults and expand quickly. Not heard or seen anything myself.
Other question I had whats the route to joining SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) for someone who has the technical skills.
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
well i believe you will have to check for National Communication Safety Board in Islamabad, they are the authority for this work.
Other than that ISI always puts up its vacancies through ads in newspapers, but they start with the term," A public sector organization" and ends up with some post box number, but people know that this post box means the ad is for ISI.
The mobile companies operations people have direct contact with these SIGINT setups in agencies due to LI interfaces (legal Interception). May be they can give you a cue or reference if you know someone there.
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
SIGINT is usually part of the army, a vital part of any military. Securing communications, eaves dropping on enemies etc... in the field. Not analysing data but providing it.
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
what exact skills you have as i assumed that you have some experience in crypt analysis etc.
SIGINT in army is generally equipment oriented and users of equipment are trained for that specific job. There is a directorate of Electronic Warfare in GHQ but i assume that it is more of a bureacracy than something productive. May be they can give you some information.
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
I'm in the computer security sector so networks, secure protocols which is usually down to using ciphers correctly, information security etc....
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
Military College of Signals in Rawalpindi is running Masters Level Degree Programme in Information Security. They will have a lot of graduates who must be working in the same sector. may be a visit there will bring some fruits.
Have you read Digital Fortress? A very nice novel indeed about the same subject. You must be knowing better as to how much depicted in it can be true and how much fiction as you are professional of the field.
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
Not read Digital Fortress myself but it's bull****. No cipher which is not acceptable to a brute force attack, if so it's only a one way function.
The Code Book by Simon Singh is a good read on behind the achievement, and people in this mercy world. You have to remember though most of the worlds best mathematicians are employed by NSA, GCHQ where their works is not published. So if you use something like RSA you never know it's broken or not.
You may know of Alan Turing who was working at Bletchley Park. Invented the first ever computer was unable to tell his professors of the achievement even though they where trying very hard to make something like a computer themselves.
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
now i see that your name risc is also that processor design scheme.
well i will definitely want to have a look at your recommended book.
About using RSA or whatever, what is the guarentee that a person's own designed algorithm not tested by the academics may have some hidden flaws. indeed i read somewhere the more tested the algorithm the safer it is & there is no reason to safeguard the algorithm. (This is only a question, not a challenge of your knowledge)
Re: Pakistan Army Website?
Indeed, the more tested an algorithm the more secure it is. There is notion that security through obsecurity is not security. May halt, slow down an atttack but it's not security only deception. The whole modern cryptography field really became a subject outside the military once DES was published. Academics have spent and still are trying to find hacks. It's now possible using a DLAN to crack DES in 7 hours. Goverment agency have more computing resources, should be much quicker.
RSA is different in that it's an asymetric cipher. The public/private keys are inverse of each other. You can decipher with one and only decipher with th other. It's specil in that the mathematic where two large prime numbers are computed (1024bits +) will rake thousand if years. RSA is essence is broken, it's never secure like lets say AES. The problem arises that to compute the output using todays computers is impossible. If Quantum computing became relaity running the computation in parallel could take a few seconds. So maybe in the future it will be seen as extremly weak. RSA to do date has proven to be the most secure cipher. Academic have tried for ages to break it. It forms the heart of secure communication on the internet e.g. SSL. If anyone finds a flaw expect a bullet in head from those who have a vested intrest (billions of pounds depnd on it) or you will be extremly rich by knowing many secrets.
Re: SigInt
Risc
won't the quantum computing create its own secure ciphers which will require even higher level of computing power? It will still be a cat & mouse chase.
Re: SigInt
exactly. A good system will take into account the possibialties of the future not the requirmtents at this snapshot in time. We will need a new generation of cryptogrpahy that will not be vunerbale to brute force attacks using quantum computing. Key lenght can be increased for example in RSA to something like 8192 bits and computing time is ridiculous. An increase in one bit doubles the time needed using classic computing systems. Will need a new generation which cant be executed in parallel.
It is a cat and mouse game, but one which is very secrative and you dont know the hand of your opponent (NSA, GCHQ). At stake is masses of information which control and define you.
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I remember reading one novel of tom clancy's Net force series where some people successfuly design a quantum computer and they create havoc in the world. However in that novel a specific type of cypher in use today was shown to be immune to Quantum computing. Generally Tom Clancy's novels are very well researched and believeable as well. Why not start using that system right now rather than waiting someone to make it and blast our secrets, like in the same novel, the makers of that quantum computer sold pakistani nuclear secrets to India.
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Becuase making a cipher resistant to a brute force attack from a quantum computer is incredibaly difficult. It's hard enough making a secure cipher against traditional computers, most ciphers fail.
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well now i remembered that in digital fortress novel, the cipher is not actually unbreakable by brute force attack but is only a ploy. otherwise it is a good novel. He has referred some theoretic principle by which it is possible to make a cipher not susceptible to brute force attack but according to him so far no one has been able to design an algorithm on this line.
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Impossible to make a cipher which cant be broken with brute force provided you had infinte computing powers.
Dan Brown rights good fiction based on half truths, nothing more.
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Yaar i do not have novel near by so i cannot tell you now but that was not an algorithm but a suggestion of an approach by which you can beat Brute Force. he actually referred to a paper presented by an academian, while himself stated that no one has ever been able to design an algorithm on it.