Re: VMPC isn't free

From: Tom St Denis (tomstdenis_at_iahu.ca)
Date: 08/27/03 

Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 13:11:50 GMT

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Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
|
| Tom St Denis wrote:
|
|
|>Yeah, well sci.crypt sucked long before I came around.
|
|
| Not a bad observation. Then I think a good way is to try
| to improve it with your 'own' (good) contributions, i.e.
| be content with some improvements in 'passive' ways. The
| big real world is also very far from ideal, since perhaps
| the existence of homo sapiens. Generations of savants have
| tried but in vain to 'improve' the world. And it seems
| it's going instead to be ever worse, with all the enviroment
| pollutions, mass-destruction weapons, political mafias
| etc. etc. (But it's useless to be too pessimistic
| and hence depressive on the other hand.)

I've thrown in my share of research topics with mixed results. For
instance, I did get some nice replies to my study of the branch
properties of FFT-like networks [for instance].

The problem is when people like Barzotak [or whatever] discover "new and
great" ciphers they waste weeks of time where legitimate questions
almost always get ignored. In the end their contributions are zero
since they brought nothing to the table.

|>Most people just get sick and stop reading it before pointing out how
|>annoying people like you [mrsjunecarey, bostak, dscott, dabiker, etc...]
|>are.
|>
|>So what, I'm pointing out what people like him are costing the rest of
|>us. I really want to learn crypto and having people trivialize the
|>field and insult the pros is not going to help.
|
|
| You (and everyone else) have the simple means of putting
| persons, whose posts you don't want to see for whatever
| (i.e. good or not) reasons, into your kill file. Once or
| twice expressing your deprecation of others' posts is
| o.k. in my opinion. But flooding the group with repetition
| of these is not only non-productive but defacto also creates
| more (through your own stuff) of what you intended to
| eliminate or supress from the very beginning, I am afraid.

Problem is Moz [for whatever reason] doesn't have a Killfille. It has
filters which don't really work that well. So unless I move to another
reader [which isn't an entirely bad idea] all there stupid posts come
through loud and clear.

Also protests must be made. I want sci.crypt to be a more academic
group and less a "heckle and scream match" between the great
"revolutionaries" in crypto.

|>I suspect many other readers would be excited to see posts from some of
|>the pros [say Vaudenay, Knudsen, Biham, etc...] instead of the constant
|>bickering between "uber-crypt-of-the-month-and-his-many-minions".
|
|
| While the first part is 'trivially' true, I don't think
| that Zoltak has behaved in 'undisciplined' manner till
| the present, even though I (subjectively) rather doubt
| that his scheme could, if any, turn out to be much better
| than RC4. That an author has often some illusions about his
| own work is understandable psychologically and should
| be tolerated within reasonable framework in my humble view.

The problem is he [like the others] don't take the science seriously.
They trivialize everything and insult the regulars. This is what drives
the real pros away. Even if Barzatols didn't "insult people" his
constant barrage of mootness is enough to drive the S/N ratio straight
to zero.

Believe it or not but there are actually real people who study crypto
for a living. Having their work trivialized at every step is just
insulting and they'd rather do without. This is where us amateurs lose out.

For example, I've been recently having a conversation with Alice
Silverberg about tori-based crypto. The conversation brought out
several interesting facts that most newbies probably wouldn't realize
[and I'm still asking a few questions yet].

I'm rather certain there are other newbies in this group would like to
learn what the XTR and CEILIDH algorithms are and how they work. [for
example].

Of course unless one of the few regular pros posts about it you'll never
learn about it. And why won't you? Because the other pros don't
discuss matters in this group. And why don't they? The prevalent
reason [from what I gathered by actually talking to them] is that
"sci.crypt is a huge waste of effort".

So you're damn right I'm pissed off at the troll-of-the-week when they
post their useless design of the week. People have to ignore them
completely and eventually they'll just leave.

Tom
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