You don't prove the security of your algorithm by saying trust me. You don't even prove the security of an algorithm by publishing the implementation ("read the

You don't prove the security of your algorithm by saying trust me. You don't even prove the security of an algorithm by publishing the implementation ("read the code fool!") that's not how security researchers convince their peers or the public. Should Bernstein just publish a cipher or PRNG as C code and just tell people to trust him? If Linus wanted to convince people, he could point to either a design document that puts forward the reasoning behind the choices made in the implementation, or a security analysis done by researchers on the actual implementation. Linus is not a cryptographer or expert in that field, despite his accolades in others. The history of cryptographic implementations, even by experts in the field who have years of experience in cryptanalysis, is that they make mistakes, both in implementation and design, and the NSA presumably is top-notch at exploiting weaknesses. I just don't understand why Linus has to act like this. He could choose to either not respond at all (which is probably what he should have done with respect to this petition), or he could have pointed to a previous discussion on the algorithm used, or let one of the other experts who did an analysis comment. There is nothing to be won by being not only a jerk about it, but making what is perhaps, too strong an assertion about the security of it. Prominent cryptographers in the field have had their algorithms and protocols broken by others, and not even giving any consideration to conditional security seems unwise. Far from convincing me, Linus's assertions have me wary of possible overconfidence. What would lend confidence for me would be an actual academic paper analyzing it, one that is peer reviewed by others in the field.