“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
It’s the question that’s easy to ask, but hard to answer. In cyberspace, how do we really know who’s on the other side of the door? The issue of establishing identity has been around as long as humans have inhabited the planet.
Since the beginning of recorded history, establishing identity has been an evolving and constant challenge. In war, making an adversary believe something strikes at the hallmark of deception. During World War II, the British launched Operation Mincemeat to deceive the Germans into believing that Greece and Sardinia were the actual targets of the invasion, not Sicily.
According to the Imperial War Museums: “to ensure that the Germans swallowed the deception, it was necessary to create a detailed false identity for the body, which was that of a homeless laborer who had died after swallowing rat poison.”
Identity works to confirm the person is who the person on the other side thinks they are. But deceptive identity has been designed to trick people into believing the person presented is who they “claim” to be, not who they really are.
The invasion of Sicily and Operation Overland, the invasion of France, depended on “crickets,” child toys at the time that made a click-clack sound. During Operation Overlord, the challenge-response system helped the Allies identify other Allies.
If this seems like a history lesson, it is. Over thousands of years, the tactics used to establish identity and trust have changed very little. However, the tools have changed significantly. Yet, as much ..
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