Information Security in an Ancient Flavour
(Authored by Ullas Tharakan - He is a SME in Information Security)

To present you with an easiest way to understand the pillars of security here is a simple example.....enjoy..

In ancient Rome, when a General in Caesar’s army wanted to send an information to Caesar, before sending the message he made it a point that the information was secure. He used a secret code to encrypt the message, for which the key was known only to Caesar. This helped the message to remain confidential.

Then the general folded the paper and placed a wax seal at the edge, so that Caesar may know if the message was intercepted or not. This ensured integrity.

Then the General stamped the wax with his own seal, so that Caesar may know that this message has come from the general. This ensured authenticity.

Then he passed the envelop to a courier, asking him to carry the message safely to Caesar. This is authorization .

Finally, he requested an acknowledgement from Caesar that he got his message. This is non-repudiation.

Possibly, the concept of auditability was not available at Caesar’s time. It is left to the present you as an exercise on how the general could have also taken care of auditability.