Attacks on Confidentiality of Communications Between Stranger Organizations

Abstract

Knowledge has become the main intangible asset of many organizations. Two organizations that have had no previous contact or relationship are defined strangers. When two stranger organizations enter into a relationship, knowledge plays a very critical role since each party has to disclose its own knowledge to achieve knowledge from the other party. In this paper, the authors study the confidentiality of communications between stranger organizations, showing that even when strong authentication algorithms, like RSA, are exploited, no guarantee that the communication is confidential can be given. This study is surely useful to keep in mind the limitations concerning the confidentiality whenever stranger organizations are involved.