the.com/security protocols
rules designed so paranoid people can trust total strangers with their secrets.
means a set of agreed steps and rules that let two parties communicate or transact without a third party wrecking it.
from emerged from cold war cryptography and telecom standards, formalized as computers needed to authenticate strangers over untrusted wires, tls and ssh being direct descendants.
weakest linkmost breaches exploit people, not the math
handshake costextra round trips before you send one byte
paradoxstronger protocols often feel more annoying, not safer
for instance
tls handshake — secures nearly every https connection since 1999
kerberos — mit's 1988 ticket system still runs corporate logins today
signal protocol — end to end encrypts whatsapp, signal, and 2 billion chats