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No. It's an excellent conference about cryptography for industry practitioners (i.e., the real, non-academic world).

sebst 9y ago
Sure. I would nevertheless bet a few satoshis that at least some of the attendees bought their tickets because they thought it would be about "coins" by mistake ;)
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  Huge pet peeve is "crypto" being used to speak of cryptocurrency exclusively instead of the more general cryptography (or even referring to something hidden, i.e. cryptozoology). Yes, yes, descriptive vs prescriptive, but I think it's dumb to destroy a perfectly good prefix just due to the fact that cryptocurrency is currently at the peak of the hype cycle.
- red_admiral 9y ago
  There was a session on blockchains and a few well-placed jokes about them in other sessions. It's not the cryptographers who are riding the hype wave at the moment.
loup-vaillant 9y ago
Note to self: the academic world is not real.
- Nokinside 9y ago
  The way I read these categories is: Academic = mathiness real world = no mathiness
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    Another way to look at it (exceptions abound of course): Academic = comes up with new ideas Industry = tweaks and implements those ideas for practical applications
  - relyio 9y ago
    There was plenty of mathiness though! The audience were overwhelmingly cryptographers.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    "Non-mathy" cryptography is unserious cryptography. The math doesn't go away when you take an industry job.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    Cryptography is almost entirely applied mathematics. If you're not working with (typically advanced) mathematics, you're not actually doing cryptography. That might come across as pretentious, but it's true - industry cryptographers doing implementation work need to understand the research even if they're not making novel academic contributions to the field. For that matter, I also think terms like "academic" and "real world" present a false dichotomy. A better way to capture the differences you're looking for might be the following categorization: 1. Theoretical cryptography, which is primarily concerned with the mathematics and computational complexity of cryptosystems that are very new, not widely deployed or currently open research problems. This includes post-quantum cryptography, pairings-based cryptography, multiparty computation, indistinguishability obfuscation, homomorphic encryption, cryptanalytic attacks, etc. 2. Practical (real world) cryptography, which is primarily concerned with the mathematics and computational complexity of cryptosystems that can be practically used or which are widely deployed. Implementation, performance, peripheral security infrastructure and side channel attacks also fall under the purview of practical cryptography. The safety and development of cryptographic libraries and protocols falls into this realm. A lot of cryptanalysis also falls into this area. There are many academic cryptographers in both domains, which is why I say that "academic" is not a useful signal as to which area someone is working in. As an example I have off the top of my head, Phil Rogaway (who won Real World Cryptography's Levchin Prize in 2016) is an academic cryptographer who specializes in practical cryptography. He invented PMAC[1] and OCB[2], which are both practical primitives for use in authenticated encryption cryptosystems; nevertheless, research like Rogaway's requires significant understanding of relevant mathematics and complexity theory. On the other side of the spectrum, Craig Gentry is an industry cryptographer working at IBM as a research scientist; he won a MacArthur Fellowship for his PhD thesis[3], which was the first feasible realization of homomorphic encryption. He was also part of the research team that made the first significant progress towards multilinear maps in pairings-based cryptography using a graded encoding scheme.[4] _________________________________ 1. http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/pmac.htm http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/pmac.htm 2. http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/index.html http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/index.html 3. https://crypto.stanford.edu/craig/craig-thesis.pdf https://crypto.stanford.edu/craig/craig-thesis.pdf 4. https://eprint.iacr.org/2012/610.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2012/610.pdf
- PunchTornado 9y ago
  tbh I never considered academic to be the real world. the real world is outside the academia.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    This bifurcation doesn't really make sense in cryptography research. Most cryptographers developing practical systems for real world usage are academics, or at the very least used to be academics.
UncleMeat 9y ago
RWC papers are mostly written and consumed by academics.
- tptacek 9y ago
  That describes virtually all crypto papers. RWC is distinct for inviting industry practitioners and for selecting talks of interest to the industry. It is the most industry-engaged cryptography conference in the world.
  - UncleMeat 9y ago
    Which is why I would not describe it as "for industry practitioners (i.e., the real, non-academic world)". There is much greater industry presence than at, say, eurocrypt, but it is clearly not "for industry practitioners".
    - tptacek 9y ago
      If you're an industry cryptography engineer, not only is it for you, but it's probably at this point the most important event of the year.
- Bromskloss 9y ago
  Maybe they are real, after all.

Sure. I would nevertheless bet a few satoshis that at least some of the attendees bought their tickets because they thought it would be about "coins" by mistake ;)

Robotbeat 9y ago
Huge pet peeve is "crypto" being used to speak of cryptocurrency exclusively instead of the more general cryptography (or even referring to something hidden, i.e. cryptozoology). Yes, yes, descriptive vs prescriptive, but I think it's dumb to destroy a perfectly good prefix just due to the fact that cryptocurrency is currently at the peak of the hype cycle.
red_admiral 9y ago
There was a session on blockchains and a few well-placed jokes about them in other sessions. It's not the cryptographers who are riding the hype wave at the moment.

loup-vaillant 9y ago

Note to self: the academic world is not real.

Nokinside 9y ago
The way I read these categories is: Academic = mathiness real world = no mathiness
- Cyph0n 9y ago
  Another way to look at it (exceptions abound of course): Academic = comes up with new ideas Industry = tweaks and implements those ideas for practical applications
- relyio 9y ago
  There was plenty of mathiness though! The audience were overwhelmingly cryptographers.
- tptacek 9y ago
  "Non-mathy" cryptography is unserious cryptography. The math doesn't go away when you take an industry job.
- dsacco 9y ago
  Cryptography is almost entirely applied mathematics. If you're not working with (typically advanced) mathematics, you're not actually doing cryptography. That might come across as pretentious, but it's true - industry cryptographers doing implementation work need to understand the research even if they're not making novel academic contributions to the field. For that matter, I also think terms like "academic" and "real world" present a false dichotomy. A better way to capture the differences you're looking for might be the following categorization: 1. Theoretical cryptography, which is primarily concerned with the mathematics and computational complexity of cryptosystems that are very new, not widely deployed or currently open research problems. This includes post-quantum cryptography, pairings-based cryptography, multiparty computation, indistinguishability obfuscation, homomorphic encryption, cryptanalytic attacks, etc. 2. Practical (real world) cryptography, which is primarily concerned with the mathematics and computational complexity of cryptosystems that can be practically used or which are widely deployed. Implementation, performance, peripheral security infrastructure and side channel attacks also fall under the purview of practical cryptography. The safety and development of cryptographic libraries and protocols falls into this realm. A lot of cryptanalysis also falls into this area. There are many academic cryptographers in both domains, which is why I say that "academic" is not a useful signal as to which area someone is working in. As an example I have off the top of my head, Phil Rogaway (who won Real World Cryptography's Levchin Prize in 2016) is an academic cryptographer who specializes in practical cryptography. He invented PMAC[1] and OCB[2], which are both practical primitives for use in authenticated encryption cryptosystems; nevertheless, research like Rogaway's requires significant understanding of relevant mathematics and complexity theory. On the other side of the spectrum, Craig Gentry is an industry cryptographer working at IBM as a research scientist; he won a MacArthur Fellowship for his PhD thesis[3], which was the first feasible realization of homomorphic encryption. He was also part of the research team that made the first significant progress towards multilinear maps in pairings-based cryptography using a graded encoding scheme.[4] _________________________________ 1. http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/pmac.htm http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/pmac.htm 2. http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/index.html http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/index.html 3. https://crypto.stanford.edu/craig/craig-thesis.pdf https://crypto.stanford.edu/craig/craig-thesis.pdf 4. https://eprint.iacr.org/2012/610.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2012/610.pdf
PunchTornado 9y ago
tbh I never considered academic to be the real world. the real world is outside the academia.
- dsacco 9y ago
  This bifurcation doesn't really make sense in cryptography research. Most cryptographers developing practical systems for real world usage are academics, or at the very least used to be academics.

UncleMeat 9y ago

RWC papers are mostly written and consumed by academics.

tptacek 9y ago
That describes virtually all crypto papers. RWC is distinct for inviting industry practitioners and for selecting talks of interest to the industry. It is the most industry-engaged cryptography conference in the world.
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Which is why I would not describe it as "for industry practitioners (i.e., the real, non-academic world)". There is much greater industry presence than at, say, eurocrypt, but it is clearly not "for industry practitioners".
  - tptacek 9y ago
    If you're an industry cryptography engineer, not only is it for you, but it's probably at this point the most important event of the year.
Bromskloss 9y ago
Maybe they are real, after all.