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From: WTShaw on 21 Jul 2010 19:17
On Jul 19, 6:50 am, Tom St Denis <t...(a)iahu.ca> wrote:
> Since there isn't much actual cryptography going on lately I felt I
> should share a recent observation I made.
>
> Compare the style of writing of people like Adacrypt, GlobeMaker,
> David Scott, MKS, etc to something like this:
>
> http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v1/n1/mars-testament-cat...
>
> Notice any similarities?  I do.  The both seem to not understand what
> they are criticizing  and put it in some form of "us vs. them"
> mentality.  For example, their use of "evolutionist" as some form of
> derogatory slur (they're implying a blind and wilful obedience to a
> doctrine as opposed to a genuine understanding and acceptance) is very
> similar to DS's terms for research cryptographers.  Their implied
> "conclusion precedes explanation" research style is similar to all
> cipher designing trolls, they start with the premise that their idea
> is right and then flail around with what little understanding they
> bothered to sort out to try and support their conclusions.
>
> They both also have a "small world" view of things.  Take Ada for
> instance.  He clearly doesn't understand what asymmetric vs. symmetric
> means in the crypto world.  In his understanding of cryptography there
> is only one way to do things (symmetrically) and anything else is
> obviously not cryptography.  Similarly, people can prove that Mars
> isn't 6000 years old (basically because the geological processes
> involved for a planet that size can't be completed in 6000 years) but
> since their world is so small as to not include basic physics
> (radiometric dating is a LIE!!!) it's obviously just bunk.
>
> Their writings both have a mention of adversary in a non-pleasant
> fashion, whereas academics tend to disprove, correct, amend, etc,
> other peoples conclusions and theorems, trolls tend to attack the
> actual person writing the things they don't agree with.  In the
> creationist mind it's not their theories against reality, it's them
> against the heathen secularist personally.  Similarly, DS has a grudge
> against Wagner, MKS against everyone, Adacrypt against [lately] Rivest
> et al., etc...
>
> Food for thought....
>
> Tom

I'm going to agree that it takes lots of broad based research to
really understand what is happening. In time all will make their
share of mistakes but to do it over ad over again seems more of a
waste of time. Ina a recent discussion with Terry Ritter, we agreed
that largely this venue is unproductive and hopelessly worn out. But,
there sometimes does come a hint of gold in spite of all else.

But, with poor logic you are not making much progress either.
Consider that most of asymmetric is essentially key based and the real
work is done with a companion symmetric system. To work on one aspect
or another is OK, to halfway understand both not so great, and to not
understand the general context of cryptography is evidence of limited
education, to whomever that applies.

History is full of lone dedicated people who did great things. Many
notables were unpopular loners and worked by their own curiosity and
instincts to the contempt of organized bodies who feared change and
wished to control tools that they could not master. To treat all these
champions of individual thought as you have done as bad is to
disregard how things have come to be. Forget the not lessened mind of
the herd who seeks only its own power.

Sociological explanations of psychology don't make sense and that is
true in the reverse, and I understand both of those fields. It is all
a view of statistics, significance and whether the models do actually
have anything to do with reality. Having limited knowledge is
cryptography does not exclude your ability to make some sort of
statement but it does not mean that such has any validity. It's like
trying to use reason to disprove the value of reason.

There's lots going on; you just don't know it. You can't logically
group dissimilars that are all different only for what each is and
each isn't. Grasping at straws means you are trying to build a straw
man but it may turn out more to be in your own likeness, or
dislikeness.
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