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Interesting article on how public-key encryption is used to keep information safe during financial transactions online. The article discusses weakness in basic public-key encryption schemes and how some of these schemes have been improved.

Clues left in the clumsily encrypted notes of a Mafia don have helped Italian investigators to track his associates and ultimately contributed to his capture after years on the run. The recently busted Bernardo Provenzano, reputed to be the "boss of bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia, used a modified form of the Caesar cipher to obscure "sensitive information" in notes left to either his family or underlings.

This blog post was a very entertaining and read. The concept that the reason people get scammed because of their strengths (trust in authority/desire to follow) and not our weaknesses is a bit mind boggling. It was very well written and kept me interested throughout the entire post.