[HN Gopher] Before passwords - ribbons and seals for document se...
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Before passwords - ribbons and seals for document security (2021)
Author : hhs
Score : 34 points
Date : 2022-02-06 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (prologue.blogs.archives.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (prologue.blogs.archives.gov)
| Pinus wrote:
| There is a legend in Sweden, that during some power struggle in
| the 16th century, several high-ranking persons had put their
| seals on a document which, after a change in political tides, put
| them at a very real risk of losing their heads in the event now
| known as "the Stockholm bloodbath". One of them -- the bishop
| Hans Brask -- then cracked open his seal to reveal a note saying
| (in 15xx Swedish) "I'm being forced to do this". He got to keep
| his head, and the word "brasklapp" (literally "Brask note") now
| means a reservation or caveat.
| crumbits wrote:
| Anybody who finds this interesting should look into tughras.
| timwis wrote:
| It strikes me that when we say we're "signing" a file/commit/etc.
| (using a key), a "seal" is probably a more appropriate analogy,
| since someone could steal your key just as someone could steal
| the seal.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| The essential property of seals is that they are fragile and
| offer tamper evidence. Removing a seal or opening a sealed
| document is supposed to be destructive to the seal, the
| document, or both. Seals are still used for this purpose.
|
| Electronic signatures don't have this property.
| timwis wrote:
| Doh, good point! A stamp of a signature would perhaps be more
| fitting.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Those would be seals (usually _royal_ seals), in European
| usage.
|
| In Japan, Hanko or Inkan:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(East_Asia)#Japanese_usa
| g...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Those would be seals (usually royal seals), in European
| usage.
|
| Well, the European usage is to call them seals in a
| European or Near Eastern context. For some reason,
| exactly the same thing in an Asian context is often
| called a "chop" in European usage.
| upofadown wrote:
| Tamper evidence is actually the only thing that cryptographic
| signatures provide. If either the "document" or signature is
| modified then verification fails.
|
| Cryptographic signatures don't provide evidence that someone
| looked at the "document" in transit. For that we use a
| separate sort of thing called encryption. The two things work
| together to provide the equivalent of a sealed envelope or
| securely folded paper document.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| DEFCON has a Tamper Evident Village where you can learn all sorts
| of ways to defeat tamper-evident seals. There's also some links
| to papers from Schneier's blog:
| https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/02/security_seal...
| dano wrote:
| You maybe interested in the articles at the Journal of Physical
| Security https://jps.rbsekurity.com
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Should this be `before certificates`? The seal didn't stop you
| from opening or viewing, just tried to establish authenticity and
| first viewing. (I realize certs don't guarantee first viewing)
| shimonabi wrote:
| As a kid, I would find red vax seal sticks in the drawers,
| because my mom worked for a bank where they sealed the cash into
| envelopes for some reason.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| I really like tally sticks[0]. Obscenely simple, but profoundly
| secure. You've got the species of wood, the unique grain, exact
| dimensions, the exact partnership between the two pieces, the
| human scrawling... This multi-dimesional identifying mechanism
| and it's little more than a couple of mundane pieces of wood with
| some contract etched into it.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_stick
| marvel_boy wrote:
| Here is also more about split tally sticks in medieval times:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DkyahZplFo
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Just ... be careful in disposal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Parliament
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Some years ago I had the opportunity to visit a switch control
| tower at a rail yard.
|
| As with much else in the technological built landscape, what I'd
| not realised before that time was how much of the structure was
| devoted to, and determined by _mechanism_. Moving a switch
| control in the tower itself activated a relay which moved a lever
| arm, which _through mechanical coupling_ moved the actual rail
| points.
|
| (This is no longer always the case, but for older infrastructure,
| and this dated to at least the 1930s, it's quite common.)
|
| The operater interfaces were themselves secured and sealed. The
| operator rather delightedly showed how the seals could be readily
| removed without any apparent sign of having done so....
|
| Times, locations, and personnel left intentionally vague, though
| few of those involved are likely still alive.
| sowbug wrote:
| Tangentially related: digital currencies like Bitcoin and
| Ethereum have spawned a burgeoning physical-document-security
| industry. If you don't want your private key to leave the
| airgapped computer that created it, but you do want a backup,
| then you might manually etch, engrave, or stamp your key onto
| metal rectangles. Some companies are now providing kits to
| facilitate this tedious process. It's a little steampunk.
|
| Even more tangentially related: if you've seen the _Rick and
| Morty_ episode "Morty's Mind Blowers," do you know the name of
| the red container that Summer snapped open to reveal emergency
| recovery instructions? You also see them in old Atomic Age
| movies. I don't know if they've had any practical application in
| the last 20-30 years, but they are pretty cool and maybe useful
| for protecting the secrets mentioned above.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Something not mentioned is the additional security built into the
| obvious wax seal.
|
| So in order to test couriers credibility and trustworthyness to
| deliver wax sealed parchments, a courier would be required to
| collect and deliver said parchment in a controlled experiment. So
| the route would be lined with spies in on the test who could
| report back anything untoward. The wax seal would be laced with
| Atropa Belladonna[1] which when inhaled from melted wax would
| cause the pupils to dilate and the delivery point would be dark.
| So when the courier handed over the parchment a lantern would be
| held up to the couriers face to see if the pupils constricted in
| the light. If the courier had melted the wax laced with
| belladonna, their pupils would look like saucers and the
| recipient would know the wax seal had been melted & vapours
| inhaled. It was a measure to protect against counterfeiting wax
| seals.
|
| I dont think this knowledge made it to the US, but it was very
| common in Europe.
|
| Loyalty & trustworthy tests still go on today, but they have
| evolved somewhat with the times, but you may not even realise you
| have been tested!
|
| [1] https://www.historyandwomen.com/2012/07/fatal-
| beauty.html#:~....
| daenz wrote:
| Impressive but honestly I am more impressed by the quality of
| handwriting at that time. The penmanship appears flawless and
| beautiful. I'm not seeing any typos or corrections. The authors
| must have had incredible focus and a crystal clear vision about
| what exactly they were going to communicate (certainly from many
| previous drafts). It makes me think that we lost something
| valuable when our published words became so "cheap" by
| comparison.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| If it helps, these documents were not written down by the
| authors but by a professional scribe whose job it was to write
| a beautiful page, or to keep trying until it was just so.
|
| The handwriting in historical letters, while still often
| beautiful, was not perfect and had errors.
| hhs wrote:
| If interested, there was a post on Timothy Matlack's great
| penmanship with writing the Declaration of Independence:
| https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2021/07/01/the-power-of-...
| lelandfe wrote:
| > The formality and skill of the engrossed copy strengthened
| the persuasiveness of the Declaration by distancing its
| arguments from any individual. The document [also] helped
| protect the identities of the signers -- the names were kept
| secret until 1777
|
| This is a fascinating aside that I'd never considered before
| (and I did not know that the signatories were kept secret for
| some time). Thanks for the link.
|
| I wonder if keeping the signatories secret was done to
| temporarily give the appearance of unanimity, since some
| congressmen refused to sign.
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