4 ms·

The amount I tend to learn after you get invested in a thread and start busting out things I've never heard of is honestly my counterpoint to arguing on the Int

The amount I tend to learn after you get invested in a thread and start busting out things I've never heard of is honestly my counterpoint to arguing on the Internet being unproductive. That it is Percival you are fencing makes me look forward to the rest of this thread, because EC vs RSA is an interesting dialogue and you both have a lot to say on it. It might look like arguing to both of you, but scraps of useful information do fling off and I appreciate your arguing. This thread and others like it make me think we need a security (and general) debate series.

tptacek 11y ago
Colin and 'pbsd are much smarter than me, and learning stuff is actually why I'm so happy to pick fights with them. I was a blog-arguer before HN, and a Usenet person before blogs, and a BBS person before that, and most of what I've learned in my whole career is traceable somehow to Internet arguments. I really do think I'm right about RSA, though.
- jsmthrowaway 11y ago
  I come back to my debate point. I think tech is in a state now where we definitely have personal policy positions but as engineers, we are reluctant to frame what we do that way. This is in contrast to politics where most issues are acceptably on a spectrum, because that is more of a "soft" field. I suspect "RSA is obsolete" is one of those things where you've carved out a position on one end, much like Schneier carved out his position on one end of curves as discussed upthread. I'm not calling you wrong, mind, as that comparison might imply: just a surprising opinion and you've certainly earned it, and I like hearing about it, and I think of you as one colorful end of a spectrum on this and a few other points. And throughout my life the extreme opinions have often panned out (i.e. Snowden), so I don't dismiss them much any more. Maybe you're crypto's Bernie. Feel the Ptacek.

tptacek 11y ago

Colin and 'pbsd are much smarter than me, and learning stuff is actually why I'm so happy to pick fights with them. I was a blog-arguer before HN, and a Usenet person before blogs, and a BBS person before that, and most of what I've learned in my whole career is traceable somehow to Internet arguments. I really do think I'm right about RSA, though.

jsmthrowaway 11y ago
I come back to my debate point. I think tech is in a state now where we definitely have personal policy positions but as engineers, we are reluctant to frame what we do that way. This is in contrast to politics where most issues are acceptably on a spectrum, because that is more of a "soft" field. I suspect "RSA is obsolete" is one of those things where you've carved out a position on one end, much like Schneier carved out his position on one end of curves as discussed upthread. I'm not calling you wrong, mind, as that comparison might imply: just a surprising opinion and you've certainly earned it, and I like hearing about it, and I think of you as one colorful end of a spectrum on this and a few other points. And throughout my life the extreme opinions have often panned out (i.e. Snowden), so I don't dismiss them much any more. Maybe you're crypto's Bernie. Feel the Ptacek.