The extended security group for website security gave their presentation today. Here are my notes… from whatever they rambled on about: link

The cryptocurrency group also gave their presentation today: link

Block Ciphers

Block ciphers operate on a set size of data rather than on a per-byte basis. If there is not enough data to complete a block, padding is appended to the block.

ECB - Electronic Codebook

  • Each block is encrypted/decrypted independently of other blocks

CBC - Cipher Block Chaining

  • Each block is XOR’d with the previous encrypted block before being encrypted itself.
  • Cannot be encrypted in parallel
  • Requires an IV for the first block

CFB - Cipher Feedback

  • IV is encrypted then XOR’d with the data to produce the cipher text
  • Previous block is encrypted, and then XOR’d with the data
  • For decryption, the IV is encrypted then XOR’d with the next block’s cipher text (?)
  • Cannot be encrypted in parallel

Can (suppoedly) cope with partial data loss (ie transmission error)

JTAG

JTAG (Joint (European) Test Access Group) is a hardware interface standard to communicate with the onboard chips on circuit boards. Often used for programming and flashing, but can also be used as a serial console, etc…

Factors of Authentication

  • Something you know - ie password
  • Something you have - ie physical element
  • Something you are - ie biometrics

But, they’re really all just something that you know.
And at the end of the day, the ‘physical’ information will somehow be transformed into ones and zeros…

Once your biometric system is compromised, you won’t be able to change your fingerprint.