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I mean... "crypto" !!! Can you imagine what cryptographers had to witness every day for a couple of years now, while the term was increasingly skewing towards a

I mean... "crypto" !!! Can you imagine what cryptographers had to witness every day for a couple of years now, while the term was increasingly skewing towards a completely misleading meaning?

nailer 9y ago
It's like if people involved in: - ATMs - eCommerce - Foreign intelligence and signals or any other similar field where crypto is essential started calling themselves 'crypto'. Yes, these field use crypto, but no, they're not crypto. Just like cryptocurrencies aren't crypto. This is crytpo: https://cr.yp.to https://cr.yp.to This is crypto: https://crypto.stackexchange.com/ https://crypto.stackexchange.com/. Things that use crypto are not crypto.
- bdamm 9y ago
  The meaning of words change when the rest of humanity takes it for their own. Claiming "crypto are not crypto" will just leave you behind as the guy with his fist in the air cursing the world. Nuclear. Hacker. Patriot. Rubber. The audience matters. Besides, I doubt that any cryptanalyst would mind writing out cryptography any more than they'd mind writing out TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256.
  - nailer 9y ago
    I'm stating crypto is cryptography. There's not multiple cryptographies as far as I'm aware so 'crypto are' doesn't make sense. And yes, words change over time, but in that case I can just refer to (all) cryptocurrency as 'Bitcoin' since that's the common definition. In fact it's far more popular to refer to cryptocurrency as Bitcoin than it is to call that 'crypto'. Short version: this one isn't settled yet. How did nuclear, patriot and rubber change?
    - owlninja 9y ago
      >this one isn't settled yet I feel like it almost is. Now even the non-technical crowd is amped up for cryptocurrency, and could really not care less about cryptography.
    - godzillabrennus 9y ago
      Judging from the mad rush into investing in “cryptos” I disagree that this isn’t settled. You just may not like how it settled.
    - Sargos 9y ago
      > this one isn't settled yet It pretty much is. Cryptography is a niche of computer science and used the word for a while but now that humanity has chosen to use the word for the entire field of distributed and trustless systems it will now and forever mean "cryptocurrencies". The larger group pretty much always wins and this case is no exception.
    - bdamm 9y ago
      Nuclear was a branch of physics, then became a weapon, then became a US senate procedural change "going nuclear". Patriot was an anti-government rebel, then a pro-government supporter, then a missile, then an act to boost government and corporate controls within digital content, and sometimes an American football player. Rubber was a tree, then a commodity, then a condom. "A rubber".
      - nailer 9y ago
        Nuclear still means to do with nuclear energy: it being used as a simile doesn't change that meaning. 'patriot' means someone who stands for what is perceived to be American values. A missile being named after it doesn't change that. Rubber is more interesting and perhaps a better comparison 'are you wearing a rubber?' during sex or 'when the rubber hits the road' in a speech, or 'do you have a rubber' during an exam. So lets let's say someone says they 'specialise in rubber': it seems reasonable to believe they mean the material: they don't mean condoms or tyres or erasers.
      - camillomiller 9y ago
        Very bad examples. You’re just saying that a lot of common words have multiple meanings based on the context. None of those meanings is prevalent as in using crypto now for shortening cryptocurrency. I think that “Rubber” being used to indicate a condom is just a very plain synecdoche. All the other meanings are there, still. Plus, rubber’s main meaning is still referring to the material
- johnhenry 9y ago
  > Things that use crypto are not crypto. It's questionable that these thing even use "crypto". Cryptocurrencies are named so because they use "cryptographic signatures". While the modular arithmetic used here is very similar to that used in "encryption", "hidden writing" doesn't take place, as the name might suggest. Signatures are more of a dual concept to cryptography than actual cryptography. (One more note: applying a hashing algorithm may be considered "one-way encryption". In areas where this is used for signatures, an argument might be made that this is cryptography).
lostcolony 9y ago
It's still common to hear barely informed business stakeholders freely interchange hashing, encoding, and encryption. "Are passwords encrypted in the database?" "Uh...no?" "OMGWTF?!"
astrodust 9y ago
Cryptozoologists are also feeling the pain.

I mean... "crypto" !!! Can you imagine what cryptographers had to witness every day for a couple of years now, while the term was increasingly skewing towards a completely misleading meaning?

nailer 9y ago

It's like if people involved in: - ATMs - eCommerce - Foreign intelligence and signals or any other similar field where crypto is essential started calling themselves 'crypto'. Yes, these field use crypto, but no, they're not crypto. Just like cryptocurrencies aren't crypto. This is crytpo: https://cr.yp.to https://cr.yp.to This is crypto: https://crypto.stackexchange.com/ https://crypto.stackexchange.com/. Things that use crypto are not crypto.

bdamm 9y ago
The meaning of words change when the rest of humanity takes it for their own. Claiming "crypto are not crypto" will just leave you behind as the guy with his fist in the air cursing the world. Nuclear. Hacker. Patriot. Rubber. The audience matters. Besides, I doubt that any cryptanalyst would mind writing out cryptography any more than they'd mind writing out TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256.
- nailer 9y ago
  I'm stating crypto is cryptography. There's not multiple cryptographies as far as I'm aware so 'crypto are' doesn't make sense. And yes, words change over time, but in that case I can just refer to (all) cryptocurrency as 'Bitcoin' since that's the common definition. In fact it's far more popular to refer to cryptocurrency as Bitcoin than it is to call that 'crypto'. Short version: this one isn't settled yet. How did nuclear, patriot and rubber change?
  - owlninja 9y ago
    >this one isn't settled yet I feel like it almost is. Now even the non-technical crowd is amped up for cryptocurrency, and could really not care less about cryptography.
  - godzillabrennus 9y ago
    Judging from the mad rush into investing in “cryptos” I disagree that this isn’t settled. You just may not like how it settled.
  - Sargos 9y ago
    > this one isn't settled yet It pretty much is. Cryptography is a niche of computer science and used the word for a while but now that humanity has chosen to use the word for the entire field of distributed and trustless systems it will now and forever mean "cryptocurrencies". The larger group pretty much always wins and this case is no exception.
  - bdamm 9y ago
    Nuclear was a branch of physics, then became a weapon, then became a US senate procedural change "going nuclear". Patriot was an anti-government rebel, then a pro-government supporter, then a missile, then an act to boost government and corporate controls within digital content, and sometimes an American football player. Rubber was a tree, then a commodity, then a condom. "A rubber".
    - nailer 9y ago
      Nuclear still means to do with nuclear energy: it being used as a simile doesn't change that meaning. 'patriot' means someone who stands for what is perceived to be American values. A missile being named after it doesn't change that. Rubber is more interesting and perhaps a better comparison 'are you wearing a rubber?' during sex or 'when the rubber hits the road' in a speech, or 'do you have a rubber' during an exam. So lets let's say someone says they 'specialise in rubber': it seems reasonable to believe they mean the material: they don't mean condoms or tyres or erasers.
    - camillomiller 9y ago
      Very bad examples. You’re just saying that a lot of common words have multiple meanings based on the context. None of those meanings is prevalent as in using crypto now for shortening cryptocurrency. I think that “Rubber” being used to indicate a condom is just a very plain synecdoche. All the other meanings are there, still. Plus, rubber’s main meaning is still referring to the material
johnhenry 9y ago
> Things that use crypto are not crypto. It's questionable that these thing even use "crypto". Cryptocurrencies are named so because they use "cryptographic signatures". While the modular arithmetic used here is very similar to that used in "encryption", "hidden writing" doesn't take place, as the name might suggest. Signatures are more of a dual concept to cryptography than actual cryptography. (One more note: applying a hashing algorithm may be considered "one-way encryption". In areas where this is used for signatures, an argument might be made that this is cryptography).

lostcolony 9y ago

It's still common to hear barely informed business stakeholders freely interchange hashing, encoding, and encryption. "Are passwords encrypted in the database?" "Uh...no?" "OMGWTF?!"

astrodust 9y ago

Cryptozoologists are also feeling the pain.