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There is so much to unpack in that thread and its references. A lot of he said she said. For example, one reference being used as evidence that djb is evil com
by Aachen 3y ago
There is so much to unpack in that thread and its references. A lot of he said she said.
For example, one reference being used as evidence that djb is evil complains about being insulted that their employer (also djb's employer, presumed to be on djb's side) suggested seeing a company doctor after being on sick leave for a while. This is 100% standard practice in the Netherlands and the doctor is independent, not from the company themselves, and keeps things confidential. It's how we resolve the conflict where you can't just claim you're sick for unspecified reasons indefinitely and continue to expect money, but the employer isn't entitled to know your medical dossier either. This lets you have medical confidentiality and long-term sick leave where the employer can trust that appropriate action is being taken because they trust the impartial doctor to verify that. This is brought up as part of the conflict between djb, the author, and the university they work for. This isn't the only thing they allude to not knowing about while abuse was alleged to be allowed to happen by djb and others. I believe most of what is written, but at the same time, the problem is clearly being exacerbated by not using coworkers, friends, or even google/ddg to find out what legal system you've moved into. Djb even suggested they should take legal action, and HR offered arbitration, but the person declined both. So now the evidence amounts to their word on a blog and the alleged perpetrators faced zero consequences.
As much as such references serve to convince me of djb=evil, they also convince me there may be more to the story than one side.
Obviously I've just highlighted one thing here, there's a lot more he-said-she-said going on elsewhere in the threads that could give one pause in believing one side verbatim, even if they're likely right in spirit
- FiloSottile 3y agoFWIW, I don't believe Bernstein is evil. I do believe he has increasingly argued in bad faith and alienated his peers to the point that they're (we're) unwilling to engage with him, which from the outside can look like his points are unrefutable.
- myrion 3y agoHm. Yeah, I really need to adjust my view on this - I found NIST's responses dodgy precisely because they seemed so unwilling to engage, and I still thought of him as respected enough to warrant better responses. If he's turned so crank-y that his peers simply no longer engage with him beyond the strictly necessary, then this all looks a bit different. I'd still love to see some of his specific criticisms addressed, but that becomes a minor point...
- nvm0n2 3y agoIt actually doesn't, because NIST needs to speak to and be trusted by more than just a tiny clique. Djb crypto is widely known and used which means they have to deal with him whether they like it or not.
- myrion 3y agoIt does for me, because his criticism (since shown to be wrong) never included the claim that KYBER was broken, just that it wasn't perfect and that he was unfairly treated. Cranks and assholes occasionally are unfairly treated, but generally are fairly ignored - the effort of dealing with their claims aren't worth it. As an outsider, "respected cryptographer makes a narrow technical claim and is brushed off by NIST" and "sore loser that no-one talks to complains that people aren't entertaining his latest complaint about the ref" are very different situations, from which I will take very different actions. This is looking more and more like the latter!
- nvm0n2 3y agoYou're making decisions based on trivial social factors instead of the only salient point, which is that NIST had proven itself to be corrupted in the past when it comes to setting cryptographic standards.
- baby 3y agoOn the other hand he’s been a great force against NSA’s shenanigans.
- Aachen 3y ago> which from the outside can look like his points are unrefutable. Just to be sure, this is not how I see it at all. I'm relatively convinced that the thing isn't backdoored rather than buying into this particular conspiracy theory. But yeah, in general that is a risk when one doesn't engage despite disagreeing
- fweimer 3y agoI'm a bit worried that we'll adopted an algorithm widely, only to be told “gotcha! here's how to break it”. After all, it would be a great way to prove once and for all that an algorithm selection process can be subverted.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]