clueful 'hacks? (was Re: Comparing Cryptographic Key Sizes II)

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> writes:
> At 23:33 +0100 6/24/97, Adam Back wrote:
> >I don't think we can explain it any more technically and expect it to
> >be useful to a journalist.
> 
> Um, some of us journalists have *gasp* taken computer science classes,
> programmed in machine code, crafted compression routines, written our own
> Unix shells, etc.
> 
> Now, I don't want to start a "who's the geekiest geek" contest, since y'all
> will win hands-down -- but I want to point out that while we may not be
> crypto-whizzes, not all of us are entirely clueless either.

Present company excluded, naturally :-)

We all know you're not clueless.  I agree with most of your articles,
usually idealogically, and technically also.  You're perhaps more of a
crypto anarchist, libertarian type fighting for the cause using
journalism as a vehicle for prosletizing than yer average 'hack anyway :-)

But the low level of crypto understanding of some journalists clearly
shows through in the articles they write, where there are garbled
facts, non-standard terminology, and complete falsities.  Half the
articles you read which mention crypto make you wince at the
innacuracies and misconceptions.  The balance given to FBI and NSA
scare stories varies also.

It's good that there are a few technically minded journalists.  I know
a few myself.

Adam
-- 
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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