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Security
Kerckhoffs's Principle
Security must not depend on the secrecy of the mechanism.
The article
If
A cryptosystem should remain secure even if everything about it except the key is public. Secrecy of the algorithm is brittle: mechanisms leak, get reverse-engineered, and get reused across systems.
Then
“Assume the attacker has your source and design. Put all of the secret in rotatable keys, and never rely on a hidden algorithm to protect anything.”
Unless
Defense in Depth — obscurity may be one thin extra layer, never the foundation
Source
Auguste Kerckhoffs, La cryptographie militaire (Journal des sciences militaires, 1883).
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