Re: Crypto Mini Faq

From: Joe Peschel (jpeschel_at_no.spam.org)
Date: 03/31/04 

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:06:10 -0000

Tom St Denis <tom@securescience.net> wrote in
news:NOlac.883$jS5.295@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com:

> Joe Peschel wrote:
>>>>> p4 of that excerpt...
>>>>>
>>>>> "encrypt - Scrambling data to make it unrecognizable"
>>>>
>>>> "Scrambling data" doesn't sound so so bad.
>>
>> Hmmm -- I seem to have stuttered.
>>
>>>
>>> Scrambling is just such a lame word.
>>
>> One of the meanings of scramble is to disarrange the elements of
>> telephone, teletype, and other electronic transmissions. To the
>> average, ahem, Dummy, scramble means jumble. I think scramble is a
>> good word to use because of the two meanings.
>
> I don't see how inventing yet another word is helping anything? I
> mean seriously how many words in Math are equivalent?

I'm not inventing another word.

>
>>>>> Um how about
>>>>>
>>>>> "encrypt [or encipher] - concealing the meaning of a message"
>>>>>
>>>>> Not only is the latter description accurate but it is more
>>>>> meaningful.
>>>>
>>>> How would this description be more meaningful to the intended
>>>> audience?
>>>
>>> Well because... um ITS WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!!!!!
>>
>> Not in the eyes of the intended audience. Concealing the meaning of a
>> message might be just re-writing it, or making a typo or grammatical
>> error.
>
> Well that's because the audience are not well suited to be
> cryptographers just yet.

People who read the "For Dummies" books don't intend to become experts on
the subject.

>
>>>
>>> Message has a meaning... you are concealing it.
>>
>> Concealing? That sounds more like steganography.
>
> Um no, Steg. hides the *existence* of a message in another.

Uh, ok...

> In crypto
> [er symmetric crypto] you are concealing the meaning not the
> existence.

I still don't think your definition of encryption is as good a definition
as "scrambling" I think yours is ambiguous and misleading.

>
> Different goals and consequences entirely.
>
>>>>> The "books for [yuppy impatient] dummies" are just symptomatic of
>>>>> a greater problem.
>>>>
>>>> What problem is that?
>>>
>>> That people want a quick fix to all problems. Hey, you wanna learn
>>> a science? Great, pick up some books, learn, experience, rinse and
>>> repeat.
>>
>> You're too young to be so cynical.
>
> Says who? Maybe I'm just cursed with two helpings of critical
> thinking?

Don't worry. Be happy.
  
>
>>> No, instead people want a reward right now. Hence the low quality
>>> book. I bet if Knuth spent 3 months writing TAOCP it wouldn't be as
>>> popular as it is now.... Hard work is supposed to be rewarded not a
>>> hockey-season worth of tacking notes together.
>>>
>>> Have you ever walked in a book store recently? I bought TAOCP from
>>> a chapters for crying out loud [um about 5 years ago]. Now? You
>>> can't even find a single math text in there. It's all "self-help"
>>> and "ASP.NET for dummies" bulldung.
>>
>> Find a better bookstore, or buy books on-line.
>
> Um, better bookstore? You obviously don't know the reality of what a
> Chapters or BN does to a locality. We used to have a decent shop at a
> local mall [7 mins walk from my house] it ran out of business. The
> chapters is a 45 mins walk and it's useless.
>
> As for books online that is reality but there is a certain quality to
> picking up a book and looking at it before buying it. I've avoided
> quite a few crappy textbooks that way in the past.
>
>>> Point is why can't people take things with a modicum of pride and
>>> respect. Being a cryptographer is not "easy" by any stretch of the
>>> imagination. You have to be good at math and computer science, you
>>> have to be able to attack things from weird angles, think like the
>>> "enemy" and use the rules of science. [This is not unlike other
>>> fields I guess].
>>
>> Yup, being good at cryptography is like being good in another field,
>> for instance, writing...
>
> I writes as a good as I requires.

I didn't mean just you. I meant people who claim to care about how they
write.

>
>>> Or put it another way. You spend [in my case] nearly 10 years
>>> teaching yourself computer science via literally 1000s of different
>>> "labs" [e.g. how todo BWT compression, how todo BN math, how
>>> ...blah] only to find some jackass who read some fluffy book and can
>>> spew out the latest verbiage gets a job instead of you....
>>>
>>
>> Imagine my surprise when I discovered most of the readers can't or
>> won't even punctuate a sentence correctly.
>
> yeah because my grammor is just that bad. Admittedly I could be a bit
> better at the spellings but I don't think it's so bad that I can't
> make a cogent point. Heck, I've found grammatical errors in Crypto'03
> proceedings before yet the paper still made sense and was published.
>

Yeah, I know. Technical guys are horrible writers. That's why they become
technical guys. :-)

J 

-- 
__________________________________________
When will Bush come to his senses?
Joe Peschel 
D.O.E. SysWorks                                 
http://members.aol.com/jpeschel/index.htm
__________________________________________

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Crypto Mini Faq
    ... > Scrambling is just such a lame word. ... One of the meanings of scramble is to disarrange the elements of telephone, ... You have to be good at math and computer science, ...
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