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In many other areas of CS (e.g., gaming, language development, DB design), the experts are simply more willing to discuss or enumerate the requirements of the p

In many other areas of CS (e.g., gaming, language development, DB design), the experts are simply more willing to discuss or enumerate the requirements of the problems they are solving. They make an effort to educate those who are interested in learning. In security, you have a cabal of self-appointed experts who write inscrutable code and chastise you if you try to improve on it. What does that accomplish other than chasing people away? These security experts make their livelihoods based on their credentials; they have every incentive to keep others out. At what point do we stop giving them the benefit of the doubt and start educating ourselves? Trust can only go so far.

001spartan 13y ago
Disclaimer: I'm an infosec student/enthusiast, so I may have a different perspective. Also, it's late; it's entirely possible that this is sleep deprivation talking. I think it's more a case of the subject being so important that it's not really something that you can take shortcuts with. When it's something so critical to daily life as the internet is becoming, it's imperative that all code made for security purposes is carefully considered, and architected to avoid the tiniest bugs. Hobbyists or amateurs (myself included) are not necessarily qualified to judge what might constitute a critical bug, and that is one of the reasons the barrier to entry in the field is so much higher.
- BrandonM 13y ago
  > it's imperative that all code made for security purposes is carefully considered, and architected to avoid the tiniest bugs. I agree wholeheartedly, but all you have to do is take a look at these security libraries' code, processes, and recent bugs to realize that the experts are failing at this. Their math and theory may be flawless, but their code is shit. I think cryptography could benefit greatly from an influx of software engineering. We should be using modern testing and code review practices to bring some measure of reliability and architectural clarity to cryptographic work. The attitude toward programmers who aren't experts (yet!) doesn't exactly encourage this.
  - 001spartan 13y ago
    That is very true. However, the number of people who are both good software engineers and good cryptographers is very low. Personally, I can't say that I've seen experts being hostile towards those willing to learn the concepts and best practices for cryptography, though. The hostility is usually reserved for those who try to roll their own crypto with ill considered design, no matter how nice their code is (Telegram, etc). But it's possible that I could be entirely out of touch with that.

001spartan 13y ago

Disclaimer: I'm an infosec student/enthusiast, so I may have a different perspective. Also, it's late; it's entirely possible that this is sleep deprivation talking. I think it's more a case of the subject being so important that it's not really something that you can take shortcuts with. When it's something so critical to daily life as the internet is becoming, it's imperative that all code made for security purposes is carefully considered, and architected to avoid the tiniest bugs. Hobbyists or amateurs (myself included) are not necessarily qualified to judge what might constitute a critical bug, and that is one of the reasons the barrier to entry in the field is so much higher.

BrandonM 13y ago
> it's imperative that all code made for security purposes is carefully considered, and architected to avoid the tiniest bugs. I agree wholeheartedly, but all you have to do is take a look at these security libraries' code, processes, and recent bugs to realize that the experts are failing at this. Their math and theory may be flawless, but their code is shit. I think cryptography could benefit greatly from an influx of software engineering. We should be using modern testing and code review practices to bring some measure of reliability and architectural clarity to cryptographic work. The attitude toward programmers who aren't experts (yet!) doesn't exactly encourage this.
- 001spartan 13y ago
  That is very true. However, the number of people who are both good software engineers and good cryptographers is very low. Personally, I can't say that I've seen experts being hostile towards those willing to learn the concepts and best practices for cryptography, though. The hostility is usually reserved for those who try to roll their own crypto with ill considered design, no matter how nice their code is (Telegram, etc). But it's possible that I could be entirely out of touch with that.