I don’t think they seriously think ROT13 is a means of secure communication. I agree it seems to be confusing people enough to collect a good set of downvotes, but for the rest it’s just intended as a lighthearted joke. Everyone knows you at least need ROT14 to be secure.
issor
December 10, 2016
Comment to Op-ed: I’m throwing in the towel on PGP, and I work in security
[I broke out into a laugh that Barb probably heard half way across the house.
Yeah. It’s a joke for computer nerds. And probably mostly old nerds.
Via email from Sean.—Joe]
ROT13 with leetspeak and NSA will never crack it.
I sure wonder about the mind, if any, of the guy who wrote that original article. I didn’t read very far, but it seems to amount to “I’m too dumb to make PGP work so I’m giving up on it and writing this bizarre article”. The place it was published doesn’t help either; Ars Technica is occasionally useful but often contains sheer crud.
Yeah … no. That wasn’t his point.
I keep trying to like Ars, but I just can’t. Some articles are great, but some are so full of Silicon Valley worship or sjw tripe that to it casts all articles into doubt. Add to that the commenters with clear hero worship issues and the sites anti 2nd stance and no thank you.
I have always just used ROT26.
As do most of us.
🙂
Just as 3DES was a quantum leap in security over DES, I find 2ROT13 is four times as secure as ROT26. The extra passes have exponential improvements in security over the longer translation matrix.
Also, I find it helps to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and engage an oscillation overthruster.
I have no coherent response to that.
🙂
Can we get the incoherent response then?
It would be a small collection of snorts and giggles.
ROT26 has the advantage of being even more invisible than steganography.
Piker.
I use ROT260.