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FWIW, 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) unwilli

FWIW, 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 ago
Hm. 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 ago
  It 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 ago
    It 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 ago
      You'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 ago
On 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 ago
I'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
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myrion 3y ago

Hm. 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 ago
It 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 ago
  It 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 ago
    You'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 ago

On 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 ago

I'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

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