The Shared Secret
When you go to a site whose address starts with https://, you’re using a bit of cryptography that uses something called a shared secret.
Shared-secret cryptography, also known as symmetric cryptography, has roots going back to Julius Caesar, who famously used simple substitution ciphers. In this method, both the sender and receiver use the same secret—called a "key" or "symmetric key"—to scramble and unscramble a message, document, or file. Only those who have that shared secret can read the content. (The shared secret key should not be confused with the keys in a “key pair,” sometimes called a “puzzle kit”, which are used in asymmetric cryptography. In that case, the keys are mathematically related but not identical, with one used to encrypt and the other to decrypt.)
It occurs to me that the term and concept of “shared secret” could also be applied to politics. A politician whose personal history includes something that would end their political career if publicly disclosed is an attractive candidate to other politicians who happen to have similar dirty secrets.
In politics, a shared secret is known as “kompromat.” Those politicians, as a group, all know that they have a means to control any member of their own group – a means to keep them in line. Each member’s knowledge and fear that their secret – their kompromat – could be revealed by any member of the group at any time is what keeps them adhering to whatever happens to be the “party line” of the group.
Sometimes, a group of kompromat-bound politicians resembles a mafia. Other times it goes beyond mere resemblance. I wonder: do kompromatted politicians have their omertà?
So, next time you see a politician going along with some scheme that seems contrary to the positions they previously held, look for evidence of kompromat.
Actually you probably won’t find it but you can certainly suspect it.
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About the Author
In 1981 Wes Kussmaul, working with friends at the MIT Joint Computer Facility, created the world’s first online encyclopedia, implemented using what he calls “the world’s worst business model.” Over the the next year the addition of social features transformed the encyclopedia into the more sustainable Delphi social network, which in 1993 was sold to Rupert Murdoch’s News America Corp.
Wes is the author of four books about bringing accountability with privacy back to social networks. One of those books caught the attention of a group at the ITU, a United Nations agency, while it was building a global PKI-based source of trust that resembled what the book advocated. Wes announced its re-launch as The City of Osmio in a 2008 presentation to the United Nations World Summit on Information Society. Wes is also the creator of Stoanova, an approach to Stoicism as it applies to problem solving.
Wes is the founder of The Authenticity Institute, a provider of a PKI platform to licensed Authenticity Enterprises, which may be seen here. The outcome of the work of those Authenticity Enterprises may be seen at Authentiverse.