Negotiating a secret for encryption in the global press

[learnedSloth]

Going to say here, from a kinda-mod perspective, this is a cool thought experiment but if you do it in a public press game (assuming I'm understanding this correctly), you are essentially communicating privately.

The messages are only encrypted, not hidden. Either player could easily prove their content to a 3rd player by revealing the key.

If you join a PPO variant game everyone is going in expecting to play a variant in which private communication is banned - if you want to communicate privately, please just join a game where it's allowed instead of trying to introduce it in a variant where it's explicitly not permitted!

I like it as a thought experiment, and hell it could be fun to mess around with in a full press game just for amusement, but please don't do this in a public press only game.

Sounds like fulfillment of

Cryptography will undoubtedly give significant advantage to players that use it, so I anticipate that it will be either ubiquitous or banned.

[jamesa7171]

If some players are using this technique in a public press game, then either

a) some other players are not using this technique, in which case those players will be at a significant disadvantage

b) every player is using this technique, in which case you are just playing a normal full press game with lots of extra steps

Either way it becomes impossible to have a public press game that is fair for all players. Therefore, no matter how cool this is on a technical level (and believe me it is very cool), it should be forbidden for use in games.

[learnedSloth]

b) every player is using this technique, in which case you are just playing a normal full press game with lots of extra steps

In normal full press you don't see when other players write messages to private press. Nor can you expose your private press to a 3rd player. You can copy/paste the discussion, but you could have copied it from anywhere.

[jamesa7171]

b) every player is using this technique, in which case you are just playing a normal full press game with lots of extra steps

In normal full press you don't see when other players write messages to private press. Nor can you expose your private press to a 3rd player. You can copy/paste the discussion, but you could have copied it from anywhere.

Ok, fair enough, it's a game that is almost identical to a normal full press game, with lots of extra steps. Either way, it's nowhere near the current experience of a public press game.

Also, doesn't that second distinction mean people would be using this in full press games too (for at least some of their messages)? If you send a "normal" private message you can't expose it to a 3rd player, but if you send a "global" private message then you can, which is strictly better except in the case where you don't want people to know that you've sent anything at all.

That one seems much less important, but at the same time it could eventually mean no escaping this in any press game of any kind.

[learnedSloth]

In normal full press you don't see when other players write messages to private press. Nor can you expose your private press to a 3rd player. You can copy/paste the discussion, but you could have copied it from anywhere.

Ok, fair enough, it's a game that is almost identical to a normal full press game, with lots of extra steps. Either way, it's nowhere near the current experience of a public press game.

The current experience of a public press game is different, because apparently no player thought that agreeing to a strong secret in the public press would be possible.

Also, doesn't that second distinction mean people would be using this in full press games too (for at least some of their messages)? If you send a "normal" private message you can't expose it to a 3rd player, but if you send a "global" private message then you can, which is strictly better except in the case where you don't want people to know that you've sent anything at all.

An alliance of more than 2 might prefer a common encryption method over private press to help keep all members updated. It however won't stop a member from plotting against the alliance in private press.

You seem to forget the possibility of betraying trust by revealing your encrypted discussion to a 3rd player without telling the peer.

[gimix]

Going to say here, from a kinda-mod perspective, this is a cool thought experiment but if you do it in a public press game (assuming I'm understanding this correctly), you are essentially communicating privately. If you join a PPO variant game everyone is going in expecting to play a variant in which private communication is banned - if you want to communicate privately, please just join a game where it's allowed instead of trying to introduce it in a variant where it's explicitly not permitted!

I like it as a thought experiment, and hell it could be fun to mess around with in a full press game just for amusement, but please don't do this in a public press only game.

I would go a bit further than @Captain: if you do it in a public press game someone will alert the mod team, you will be asked to stop, and if you don't stop you will be sanctioned and in the end probaly banned from the site.

I remember a Wilsonian game in which another player and me joked a bit with some obfuscated Perl code (Perl guys: we were making some JAPH's): we didn't exchange anything useful, just the name of the game or something like that, but the other players went understandably crazy about it and we had to explain a good deal to convince them we weren't cheating

[Hominidae]

I'm confused: how does one message some players but not other players using this method?

[kestasjk]

I definitely agree using this method is equivalent to private press. It's a very neat trick, but it's using cryptography to work around the game rules, and if the rule of the game is "public press" using these techniques violates that and effectively makes it private press, using some very clever cryptographic techniques

I'm confused: how does one message some players but not other players using this method?

That's the magic of public key crytography: It's as if you have a padlock that can be copied and pasted, that you can share with anyone, and only you have the key to that padlock. You can share the padlock with whoever you want, and anyone can use that padlock to write a message, put it in a box, and use the padlock to lock it, and only you have the private key that unlocks the padlock

[learnedSloth]

I definitely agree using this method is equivalent to private press. It's a very neat trick, but it's using cryptography to work around the game rules, and if the rule of the game is "public press" using these techniques violates that and effectively makes it private press, using some very clever cryptographic techniques

This grew from a smirky remark to the challenge put forth in

Can you too convey secret messages to a target player in a public forum?

However I do believe that cryptography adds a new dimension that just doesn't exist in private press, because privacy trumps encryption when the former is available.

Knowing that the peer could just reveal the discussion to the enemy probably makes you more careful, and possibly also affects the choices you make in the game. Seeing the encrypted correspondence of other players might also suggest that they are plotting against you. Someone could even find a way to carry out rubber-hose cryptanalysis on the board.

[kestasjk]

privacy trumps encryption when the former is available.

Hmm, did you get this the wrong way round? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by privacy? If you mean "privacy" as guaranteed by a company / law / etc I'd say encryption trumps privacy.

[learnedSloth]

privacy trumps encryption when the former is available.

Hmm, did you get this the wrong way round? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by privacy? If you mean "privacy" as guaranteed by a company / law / etc I'd say encryption trumps privacy.

I just compare the private channels in full press to encryption in public press. In the latter other players get some info of your correspondence, like message frequency and approximate message length unless you conceal it.

Of course you would prefer this method even in private press if you don't trust webDip to hide your private channels from other players.

[kestasjk]

privacy trumps encryption when the former is available.

Hmm, did you get this the wrong way round? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by privacy? If you mean "privacy" as guaranteed by a company / law / etc I'd say encryption trumps privacy.

I just compare the private channels in full press to encryption in public press. In the latter other players get some info of your correspondence, like message frequency and approximate message length unless you conceal it.

Of course you would prefer this method even in private press if you don't trust webDip to hide your private channels from other players.

I see I see, you meant in the context of webDip.

Yeah encrypting messages send in a private message in webDip would be pretty paranoid on a few levels.. Our security record is almost perfect, and trust me it's not because we're not a target; the error logs have revealed targeted injection attempts and probes many times, and we've had bounty hunters / ethical hackers report (fairly minor) vulnerabilities which shows the code does get audited.

The only breach was back in the 0.7x ~2006-8 days when we were on shared hosting and the config file with the database passwords had permissions that meant they were exposed to other users on the server, so someone on the same server logged into the DB and set everyone's points to 999999.