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This is the thousandth time I've clicked on a "crypto" article expecting it to be about cryptography, and instead it's about blockchain/cryptocurrencies. Is th

This is the thousandth time I've clicked on a "crypto" article expecting it to be about cryptography, and instead it's about blockchain/cryptocurrencies. Is this a losing battle?

benmdi 8y ago
lol, sorry. I actually used to find this frustrating myself. At some point, I just gave up and it switched in my brain. Guess I'm part of the problem now....
- recursive 8y ago
  So how do you refer to cryptography? Just fully spell out "cryptography"? This is aggravating to me as well.
  - benmdi 8y ago
    yeaaah just spell it out, like an animal
  - mLuby 8y ago
    "Encryption" is unambiguous and is almost always what is meant. (But then I don't say crypto because I'm not slinging buzzwords to impress people.)
    - grumdan 8y ago
      Cryptography deals with much more than encryption though, and also in real life often you want properties that go beyond what encryption provides (message integrity, forgery resistance, perfect forward secrecy, anonymity, ..).
    - stingraycharles 8y ago
      This is completely false. Encryption is just a single branch of cryptography.
    - recursive 8y ago
      I dispute the idea that cryptography almost always refers to encryption. And I've never said "crypto" to impress people. (Who would that impress?)
  - kinsomo 8y ago
    > So how do you refer to cryptography? Just fully spell out "cryptography"? This is aggravating to me as well. Considering cryptography is a far more useful and pervasive technology, I feel it should have dibs on the shorter "crypto" slang.
gsich 8y ago
Haven't heared of a "cryptography community", so I'll assumed cryptocurrencies.
- pejrich 8y ago
  There was a cryptography community before there was a cryptocurrency community, by definition.
- eesmith 8y ago
  At one point about 1/2 of the "cryptography community" was employed by the NSA. Anyhoo, here's some references over the last few decades: "But now, in light of the leaked NSA documents, NIST is reevaluating the cohort of random-number generators that includes Dual EC DRBG, and it has opened a public forum on its website where the cryptography community can raise concerns." - https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/can-you-trust-nist https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/can-you-trust-nis... (2013) "Anyone possessing that second set of numbers would have what’s known in the cryptography community as “trapdoor information” – that is, they would be able to essentially unlock the encryption algorithm by predicting what the random number generator generated." - https://www.wired.com/2013/09/nsa-backdoor/ https://www.wired.com/2013/09/nsa-backdoor/ (2013) "It was declassified on 24 June 1998, shortly after its basic design principle had been discovered independently by the public cryptography community." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipjack_(cipher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipjack_(cipher) "The cryptography community has long known that generating random numbers requires great care and is easy to do poorly; Netscape learned this lesson somewhat painfully." - http://www.ddj.com/windows/184409807 http://www.ddj.com/windows/184409807 (1996) "Would the cryptography community be better off if only the NSA did patent reviews?" - https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/216c/216af763d36f3f35dc9f330a6028715907af.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/216c/216af763d36f3f35dc9f33... (1988)
mxuribe 8y ago
I happened to notice the inclusion of "blockchain" in the destination domain name...so got the clue before clicking through. But I don't even think this piece focuses much on cryptocurrency anyway...its more about the hazards of centralization/decentralization with respect to protocols and platforms that host services using said protocols. Don't get me wrong, i actually really liked the article...but a discussion on cryptography or crypto-currency its not.
- sorokod 8y ago
  In one of Neil Stephenson's books he mentions that in the 19th ( ? ) century, people who performed (manual) calculation where called "computers".
shpx 8y ago
Do you also get frustrated when people say "decimate" when they don't mean "remove 10% of something"? Words change meaning, and that's okay. There's way more people talking about bitcoin than AES, it would be more efficient for them to get the shorter word. Cryptographers shouldn't get to keep a prefix forever just because it makes more sense etymologically and they used it first. You probably understand all of this and this is you exerting social pressure against change you disagree with. I say best to just get used to it. Wait until these get-rich-quick schemes stop working and we can have our abbreviation back. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up waiting decades or longer though. https://xkcd.com/1108 https://xkcd.com/1108
qop 8y ago
Man that's a comment I really resonate with. I wish I had sql or something hn submissions. If it has crypto in the title but block chain in the article, I'm not interested....!
strkek 8y ago
Worse of all is that this abbreviation must have come from someone who had no idea what cryptocurrencies are; someone who thought it was "magical WoW money but better". Because I just can't wrap my head around the fact that anyone who knows what a cryptocurrency is, is somehow unaware of all the massive prior art indicating that crypto=cryptography. It's like calling light bulbs "glowing pears" (jk, I love the German language <3).
crtasm 8y ago
When the sitcom Silicon Valley recently used it to refer to cryptocurrency I considered the battle lost.

This is the thousandth time I've clicked on a "crypto" article expecting it to be about cryptography, and instead it's about blockchain/cryptocurrencies. Is this a losing battle?

benmdi 8y ago

lol, sorry. I actually used to find this frustrating myself. At some point, I just gave up and it switched in my brain. Guess I'm part of the problem now....

recursive 8y ago
So how do you refer to cryptography? Just fully spell out "cryptography"? This is aggravating to me as well.
- benmdi 8y ago
  yeaaah just spell it out, like an animal
- mLuby 8y ago
  "Encryption" is unambiguous and is almost always what is meant. (But then I don't say crypto because I'm not slinging buzzwords to impress people.)
  - grumdan 8y ago
    Cryptography deals with much more than encryption though, and also in real life often you want properties that go beyond what encryption provides (message integrity, forgery resistance, perfect forward secrecy, anonymity, ..).
  - stingraycharles 8y ago
    This is completely false. Encryption is just a single branch of cryptography.
  - recursive 8y ago
    I dispute the idea that cryptography almost always refers to encryption. And I've never said "crypto" to impress people. (Who would that impress?)
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > So how do you refer to cryptography? Just fully spell out "cryptography"? This is aggravating to me as well. Considering cryptography is a far more useful and pervasive technology, I feel it should have dibs on the shorter "crypto" slang.

gsich 8y ago

Haven't heared of a "cryptography community", so I'll assumed cryptocurrencies.

pejrich 8y ago
There was a cryptography community before there was a cryptocurrency community, by definition.
eesmith 8y ago
At one point about 1/2 of the "cryptography community" was employed by the NSA. Anyhoo, here's some references over the last few decades: "But now, in light of the leaked NSA documents, NIST is reevaluating the cohort of random-number generators that includes Dual EC DRBG, and it has opened a public forum on its website where the cryptography community can raise concerns." - https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/can-you-trust-nist https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/can-you-trust-nis... (2013) "Anyone possessing that second set of numbers would have what’s known in the cryptography community as “trapdoor information” – that is, they would be able to essentially unlock the encryption algorithm by predicting what the random number generator generated." - https://www.wired.com/2013/09/nsa-backdoor/ https://www.wired.com/2013/09/nsa-backdoor/ (2013) "It was declassified on 24 June 1998, shortly after its basic design principle had been discovered independently by the public cryptography community." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipjack_(cipher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipjack_(cipher) "The cryptography community has long known that generating random numbers requires great care and is easy to do poorly; Netscape learned this lesson somewhat painfully." - http://www.ddj.com/windows/184409807 http://www.ddj.com/windows/184409807 (1996) "Would the cryptography community be better off if only the NSA did patent reviews?" - https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/216c/216af763d36f3f35dc9f330a6028715907af.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/216c/216af763d36f3f35dc9f33... (1988)

mxuribe 8y ago

I happened to notice the inclusion of "blockchain" in the destination domain name...so got the clue before clicking through. But I don't even think this piece focuses much on cryptocurrency anyway...its more about the hazards of centralization/decentralization with respect to protocols and platforms that host services using said protocols. Don't get me wrong, i actually really liked the article...but a discussion on cryptography or crypto-currency its not.

sorokod 8y ago
In one of Neil Stephenson's books he mentions that in the 19th ( ? ) century, people who performed (manual) calculation where called "computers".

shpx 8y ago

Do you also get frustrated when people say "decimate" when they don't mean "remove 10% of something"? Words change meaning, and that's okay. There's way more people talking about bitcoin than AES, it would be more efficient for them to get the shorter word. Cryptographers shouldn't get to keep a prefix forever just because it makes more sense etymologically and they used it first. You probably understand all of this and this is you exerting social pressure against change you disagree with. I say best to just get used to it. Wait until these get-rich-quick schemes stop working and we can have our abbreviation back. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up waiting decades or longer though. https://xkcd.com/1108 https://xkcd.com/1108

qop 8y ago

Man that's a comment I really resonate with. I wish I had sql or something hn submissions. If it has crypto in the title but block chain in the article, I'm not interested....!

strkek 8y ago

Worse of all is that this abbreviation must have come from someone who had no idea what cryptocurrencies are; someone who thought it was "magical WoW money but better". Because I just can't wrap my head around the fact that anyone who knows what a cryptocurrency is, is somehow unaware of all the massive prior art indicating that crypto=cryptography. It's like calling light bulbs "glowing pears" (jk, I love the German language <3).

crtasm 8y ago

When the sitcom Silicon Valley recently used it to refer to cryptocurrency I considered the battle lost.