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This is what I like about Schneier. He makes things, knows they need analysis by other people, and when the analysis comes in negative, he accepts it. No quibbl
by delinka 13y ago
This is what I like about Schneier. He makes things, knows they need analysis by other people, and when the analysis comes in negative, he accepts it. No quibbling, no weaseling, just a "that's the way it is" attitude.
- gjm11 13y agoThe analysis didn't come in negative. It describes the key idea in Yarrow and Fortuna as "simple but brilliant", and finds that Fortuna does its job rather well. It corrects a couple of (not very large) errors in the paper that introduced Fortuna and presents a modified version that does better. None of that makes either Schneier or Fortuna look substantially bad. Accordingly, there's nothing very surprising or impressive in the fact that he's prepared to accept it. (For the avoidance of doubt, I am not -- at all -- making any criticism of Schneier. Just saying that Schneier's response to this paper isn't anything special.) [EDITED to add: Perhaps you were thinking that the paper's presentation of the "premature next" problem amounts to demonstrating a weakness in Fortuna? No -- dealing with the "premature next" problem was a key design goal of Fortuna, and it did it rather well. The paper just shows how to do it even better.]