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Rating Agencies Shared Data, and Wall St. Seized on It

• adulau 16y ago
  “They have to explain how they do things, but that sometimes allowed people to game it.” Does this mean the obscurity of the rating scheme would have helped to avoid the gaming on it by the banks? I don't think so. Yes, knowing how the rating is done would help to trick them. Like any function, as long as you know the parameters, you can modify the input. But increasing the obscurity of the rating scheme would generate much more issues. The Kerckhoffs' principle is "valid" in cryptography and this is also applicable in the financial sector.