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Take into account that this particular post glosses over a looot of stuff. A more detailed write-up would not make you feel that dumb.

by vadfa 5y ago

nkurz 5y ago
Maybe, or maybe not. Presumably that "more detailed write-up" would be something like the third footnote: https://yifan.lu/2019/02/22/attacking-hardware-aes-with-dfa/ https://yifan.lu/2019/02/22/attacking-hardware-aes-with-dfa/. Despite being much more detailed, I still felt just about as dumb! :)
baq 5y ago
on the contrary, it'd make me feel a lot dumber...
- wingerlang 5y ago
  You can do a lot with persistence too. I recently tried to reverse engineer some software protection. Ultimately I decided to cut my losses but the 2-3 weeks I spent on it was a very gradual chipping into more and more advanced stuff. Now imagine having years of experience, and chipping away over years. One "wow" moment in a blog article might have taken 3 months of headaches to reach.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    Reading the blog post, it sounds like a supergenius' long weekend, so the timeline O(months) is not to be skipped over. 1% genius, 99% perspiration. Or more recently, "an overnight success after trying for 10 years".
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>A more detailed write-up would not make you feel that dumb. Errr, no. Just because you would have more details and everything would seem easier to understand and it's simple to sit on the couch and be like "yeah that looks simple, I could have done that", because that still glosses over the huge amount of research and the number of trails and errors the author put in not just during this project but throughout his career to get to this point where everything Just Works™ for him so he can make it look simple for everyone else. Just like with Edison and the light bulb, even if the end result seems very simple in hindsight, the process of getting there is definitely not.
- vadfa 5y ago
  This is like studying a technical subject in university... As you said, you wouldn't know how they reached that knowledge, but at least you would understand how the matter itself works.
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  I still fall into that same trap. Oh wow these guys amazing (they probably are). But when you watch a presentation it has this weird effect of compressing what took them weeks/months/years to do into a 45 min presentation, making you feel really bad. I try to remind jr devs the same thing. I am showing you this thing I have been working on. They had no idea I was working on it. But suddenly I have hundreds of lines of code and it all 'just works'. It makes me look like a wizard to them. But I remind them I spent the past 4 months working on that thing, do not feel bad or stupid. It just takes time and failing thousands of times over and over.
snthd 5y ago
To loosely paraphase Feynman - the fact the author can explain it so clearly to those not deep in the field demonstrates a real understanding and depth. (Feynman said something like, if you can't explain it to a layman you don't really understand it.)

Take into account that this particular post glosses over a looot of stuff. A more detailed write-up would not make you feel that dumb.

by vadfa 5y ago

Take into account that this particular post glosses over a looot of stuff. A more detailed write-up would not make you feel that dumb.

nkurz 5y ago

Maybe, or maybe not. Presumably that "more detailed write-up" would be something like the third footnote: https://yifan.lu/2019/02/22/attacking-hardware-aes-with-dfa/ https://yifan.lu/2019/02/22/attacking-hardware-aes-with-dfa/. Despite being much more detailed, I still felt just about as dumb! :)

baq 5y ago

on the contrary, it'd make me feel a lot dumber...

wingerlang 5y ago
You can do a lot with persistence too. I recently tried to reverse engineer some software protection. Ultimately I decided to cut my losses but the 2-3 weeks I spent on it was a very gradual chipping into more and more advanced stuff. Now imagine having years of experience, and chipping away over years. One "wow" moment in a blog article might have taken 3 months of headaches to reach.
- fragmede 5y ago
  Reading the blog post, it sounds like a supergenius' long weekend, so the timeline O(months) is not to be skipped over. 1% genius, 99% perspiration. Or more recently, "an overnight success after trying for 10 years".

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

>A more detailed write-up would not make you feel that dumb. Errr, no. Just because you would have more details and everything would seem easier to understand and it's simple to sit on the couch and be like "yeah that looks simple, I could have done that", because that still glosses over the huge amount of research and the number of trails and errors the author put in not just during this project but throughout his career to get to this point where everything Just Works™ for him so he can make it look simple for everyone else. Just like with Edison and the light bulb, even if the end result seems very simple in hindsight, the process of getting there is definitely not.

vadfa 5y ago
This is like studying a technical subject in university... As you said, you wouldn't know how they reached that knowledge, but at least you would understand how the matter itself works.
sumtechguy 5y ago
I still fall into that same trap. Oh wow these guys amazing (they probably are). But when you watch a presentation it has this weird effect of compressing what took them weeks/months/years to do into a 45 min presentation, making you feel really bad. I try to remind jr devs the same thing. I am showing you this thing I have been working on. They had no idea I was working on it. But suddenly I have hundreds of lines of code and it all 'just works'. It makes me look like a wizard to them. But I remind them I spent the past 4 months working on that thing, do not feel bad or stupid. It just takes time and failing thousands of times over and over.

snthd 5y ago

To loosely paraphase Feynman - the fact the author can explain it so clearly to those not deep in the field demonstrates a real understanding and depth. (Feynman said something like, if you can't explain it to a layman you don't really understand it.)