Obfuscation
In
Medical
Doctors are faulted for using jargon to conceal unpleasant facts from a patient; the American author and physician Michael Crichton said that medical writing is a "highly skilled, calculated attempt to confuse the reader". The psychologist B. F. Skinner said that medical notation is a form of multiple audience control, which allows the doctor to communicate to the pharmacist things which the patient might oppose if they could understand medical jargon.[2]
Eschew
"Eschew obfuscation", also stated as "eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation", is a humorous
An earlier similar phrase appears in Mark Twain's Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, where he lists rule fourteen of good writing as "eschew surplusage".
Secure communication
Obfuscation of oral or written communication achieves a degree of secure communication without a need to rely upon technology. This technique is sometimes referred to as "talking around" and is a form of security through obscurity.
A notable example of obfuscation of written communication is a message sent by September 11 attacks ringleader Mohamed Atta to other conspirators prior to the attacks occurring:[4]
The semester begins in three more weeks. We've obtained 19 confirmations for studies in the faculty of law, the faculty of urban planning, the faculty of fine arts and the faculty of engineering.
In this obfuscated message, the following code words are believed to exist:[5]
- "semester" refers to planned September 11 attacks
- "19 confirmations" refers to the Hijackers in the September 11 attacks
- "faculty of law" refers to a target, the United States Capitol
- "faculty of urban planning" refers to a target, the World Trade Center
- "faculty of fine arts" refers to a target, the White House
- "faculty of engineering" refers to a target, The Pentagon
Within the illegal drug trade, obfuscation is commonly used in communication to hide the occurrence of drug trafficking. A common spoken example is "420", used as a code word for cannabis, a drug which, despite some recent prominent decriminalization changes, remains illegal in most places. The Drug Enforcement Administration reported in July 2018 a total of 353 different code words used for cannabis.[6]
White box cryptography
In white-box cryptography, obfuscation refers to the protection of cryptographic keys from extraction when they are under the control of the adversary, e.g., as part of a DRM scheme.[7]
Network security
In network security, obfuscation refers to methods used to obscure an attack payload from inspection by network protection systems.
In popular culture
- In Animal Farm, the pigs such as Squealer and Snowball use obfuscation to confuse the other animals with doublespeak in order to prevent any uprisings.
- In the British Sitcom Sir Humphrey Appleby often uses obfuscation for comedic effect while trying to confuse and prevent Jim Hackerfrom taking charge.
See also
- Black box
- Cant (language)
- Code word (figure of speech)
- Doublespeak
- Fallacy of quoting out of context
- Fuzzy concept
- Jargon
- Mind games
- Obfuscated code
- Obscurantism
- Plain English
- Politics and the English Language
- Propaganda
- Steganography
- Verbosity
References
- ^ The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Tom McArthur, Ed., (1992) p. 543.
- ^ Skinner, B.F. (1957) Verbal Behavior p. 232
- ^ United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA Technical Memorandum (1959), p. 171.
- ^ "Virtual soldiers in a holy war". Haaretz. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- OCLC 920167233.
- ^ "Slang Terms and Code Words: A Reference for Law Enforcement Personnel" (PDF). Drug Enforcement Administration. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
- ^ Chow S, Eisen P, Johnson H, et al. A white-box DES implementation for DRM applications[M]//Digital Rights Management. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2002: 1-15.
External links
- Media related to Obfuscation at Wikimedia Commons