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I debated whether to include the cryptography questions in this section, but I wanted to include them somewhere and this was the most natural arrangement. Fair
by _pius 14y ago
I debated whether to include the cryptography questions in this section, but I wanted to include them somewhere and this was the most natural arrangement.
Fair enough, but you made some pretty bold statements about what this exam is supposed to measure and I don't think this lives up to it.
For instance, I happened to have taken an intro security course taught by Ron Rivest; thus, I know the difference between a MAC and a hash function. But I wouldn't claim that another developer who didn't have exposure to the material was deficient in basic knowledge, anymore than I would make that claim about a security researcher who didn't know the basics of how a support vector machine works. These things are pretty specialized, even if they're not particularly difficult to learn.
- cperciva 14y agoyou made some pretty bold statements about what this exam is supposed to measure and I don't think this lives up to it. I believe I said most developers should be able to answer a majority of the questions -- not necessarily every single one. But I do feel that all developers should have some basic knowledge of security, and the difference between hash and MAC is a pretty important thing to know there... as all the people who have been caught using them wrong can testify to.
- _pius 14y agoBut I do feel that all developers should have some basic knowledge of security, and the difference between hash and MAC is a pretty important thing to know there... as all the people who have been caught using them wrong can testify to. Touché. :)