Handling a TOFU conflict

Robert J. Hansen rjh at sixdemonbag.org
Sat Dec 10 01:54:59 CET 2016


> Fwiw: I'm totally on werner's side reagarding homgraphic attacks because I 
> currently don't see them as a threat. But I am open for arguments :-)

I agree with you.  More than that, I see this is a Bill-and-Ted problem
(so named for the movie _Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure_):


Bill: Ted, while I agree that, in time, our band will be most
      triumphant, the truth is Wyld Stallyns will never be a super
      band until we have Eddie Van Halen on guitar.

Ted:  Yes, Bill. But I do not believe we will get Eddie Van Halen
      until we have a triumphant video.

Bill: Ted, it's pointless to have a triumphant video before we
      even have decent instruments.

Ted:  Well, how can we have decent instruments when we don't really
      even know how to play?

Bill: That's why we need Eddie Van Halen!

Ted:  And that's why we need a triumphant video!


Bill-and-Tedism is like bikeshedding, but even less productive.
Bikeshedding wastes valuable time and energy on trivia; Bill-and-Tedding
escalates trivial things to issues that block work getting done.
Insisting that theoretical attacks be mitigated is (usually)
Bill-and-Tedism.  There will always be more theoretical attacks to
mitigate and as a result it'll never be deployed.  On the other hand,
you can always put in the release notes, "We do not defend against this
theoretical attack.  If that's a problem for you, disable this feature."

AFAIK, there are no reports of homographic attacks being used in the
wild.  I personally would be overjoyed if they were: that would mean
OpenPGP's adoption had increased to the point where it was worthwhile to
make these attacks...



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