Hacking Question

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by smurf

I was thinking TL10.

TL 10 basic encryption requires complexity 10 to crack -- it's +2 complexity to break per TL above 9.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by Anthony

TL 10 basic encryption requires complexity 10 to crack -- it's +2 complexity to break per TL above 9.

Where does it say that?

From my understanding Encryption is Basic or Secure. Getting a TL9 computer to run at Comp 8 is pretty difficult or expensive. Where as TL Comp 8 is fairly expensive whereas Comp 10 is serious money and size.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by smurf

Where does it say that?

UT47, description of 'basic encryption' and 'secure encryption'. "Add +2 to the required Complexity per TL after TL9"

[AlexanderHowl]

Which pretty much means that you need a Macroframe (Complexity 8) at TL 9 and TL 10 to decrypt civilian encryption in one hour and a Fast Megacomputer to decrypt military encryption in one hour (alternatively, you can use a Quantum Tiny Computer to decrypt civilian encryption in one hour or a Quantum Personal Computer to decrypt military encryption in one hour). Realtime decryption at TL9 or TL10 requires a Quantum Mainframe for civilian encryption or a Quantum Megacomputer for military encryption. If you are playing a hacker, it is just better to purchase a quantum computer than to purchase the normal computer (a TL9 or TL10 Fast Megacomputer costs $200M while a TL9 or TL10 Quantum Personal Computer costs $10k). Heck, Quantum computers are just better because an organization would only spend $100M for a TL9 or TL10 Quantum Megacomputer that can decrypt military encryption in realtime while the same organization would spend $200M for a TL9 or TL10 Fast Megacomputer that can decrypt military encryption in one hour.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by Anthony

UT47, description of 'basic encryption' and 'secure encryption'. "Add +2 to the required Complexity per TL after TL9"

Oh yeah, that sort of makes it nigh impossible.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

If you are playing a hacker, it is just better to purchase a quantum computer than to purchase the normal computer.

Though realistically, if quantum computers are available at all it will be necessary to change encryption methods to ones that cannot be easily broken by quantum computers (Assuming no other tech innovations, they'll use secure encryption with one time pads; it's fairly trivial to sync them for a single tactical operation, and $500 isn't really much).

Also a note for quantum communication: someone interrupting the channel doesn't just alert the user. It makes the content of the channel unreadable by anyone.

[ericthered]

I will point out that this refers to the difficulty of breaking the encryption, not the overall difficulty of hacking in. Often, the encryption is the best defended part of security while other aspects are neglected. None of the world's most famous viruses have relied on breaking encryption. Subtle vulnerabilities that avoid breaking encryption are the bread and butter of computer security.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by ericthered

None of the world's most famous viruses have relied on breaking encryption.

That's because realistic encryption is way harder to crack than the UT rules indicate. A realistic version is something like:
Basic Encryption: basic encryption is proof against any reasonable level of effort for known technologies of the same TL. Base complexity to crack it is 12 (at TL 9). Halve complexity for Exotic Codebreakers of the same or higher TL.
Secure Encryption: as basic encryption, but complexity is 14 and exotic codebreakers must be higher TL.
Exotic Codebreakers: specialized technology designed for cracking encryption. Quantum Computers count as exotic codebreakers at TL 9; higher TL exotics are probably technologies we haven't even got terms for. Assume 'quantum' on a computer just means it's an exotic codebreaker.