Perception vs. reality

The popular perception of many things may not be an accurate reflection of reality. In Silicon Valley, for example, every few years a mountain lion finds its way from the nearby mountains into one of the densely-inhabited neighborhoods. These mountain lions often end up being shot and killed by the local authorities. This often causes the local residents to be outraged that the animal was killed instead of just incapacitated.

The local authorities then explain that tranquilizer darts don’t actually immediately knock out an animal. Instead, they tend to create an enraged animal that’s potentially dangerous for several minutes before they lose consciousness. On the other hand, almost everyone has seen tranquilizer darts work immediately in TV shows and movies. The result is that the popular perception of how tranquilizer darts work is very different from reality.

The inaccurate portrayal of such effects isn’t just limited to TV and movies. The effects of drugs and poisons are portrayed so inaccurately in espionage stories that it prompted the article “WANTED: A Pharmacologist for M.I. 5” in The Journal of Irreproducible Results that pointed out some of the common inaccuracies. An example of this is the fact that despite its depiction in popular fiction, curare isn’t really suitable for coating a blowdart that’s meant to kill a person. Curare darts are actually so ineffective against larger animals that South American native tribes actually only use them on small prey. Few people take the time to learn the real effects of curare, but many are exposed to the fictionalized effects. The net result of this is a misperception in exactly how deadly curare darts are.

The field of information security also suffers from a few mismatches between perception and reality. Part of this is probably due to the way in work of the marketing efforts of security vendors, while another part is probably due to the inaccurate portrayal of some security technologies by TV shows and movies. Here's an example of how encryption was portrayed in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension:

(RAWHIDE and BILLY TRAVERS are trying to access information on Yoyodyne's network, but are being thwarted by encryption. Yoyodyne is a defense contractor, so they probably have cryptography that's certified by the NSA and other super-secret government organizations.)

RAWHIDE: Try a G-cipher.

BILLY TRAVERS: G-cipher. (types "G-cipher" on the keyboard) There.

RAWHIDE: Ah. That's more like it.

BILLY TRAVERS: Looks like we've accessed their restricted data file. Could be highly revealing.

If it's used correctly, however, encryption provides virtually unbreakable security. If that's the case, then there's always a better way for a hacker to accomplish his goals than to try to beat the encryption. And even if a determined and well-funded adversary decides to try to beat the encryption, it will take a huge amount of effort. It's never as easy as just typing "G-cipher."

Unfortunately, encryption is never shown that way by TV shows and movies. That's probably because if it was shown more accurately, it wouldn't be very entertaining. A more realistic way to show it would just involve watching hackers sit back and wait for billions of years as their expensive computers try to recover a single encryption key. That's how hard it is to really beat cryptography. If you need to protect sensitive information, it's definitely the best way to do it.