On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Victor Duchovni <victor.ducho...@morganstanley.com> wrote: >> Why are you trying to enforce the idea of cryptography as a black box, >> rather than something that people should learn about? > > Because in amost all cases that's exactly the right advice.
Well, yes, about the 'almost' you are spot on, but generally those 'situations' already start out with the initial question hinting someone is already busy 'improving / inventing' stuff and now wonders, after the first few lines he wrote, what the heck this magic wand called a compiler is doing to his code. No indication of that this time around (and yes, I know my judgement module is flawed). Besides, ponder your own words: > The cryptography learning that is sufficient and desirable is from books > such as "Applied Cryptography" which cover protocols and algorithms > at a high level. Studying the implementation or creating ones own vvvv > implementation is for experts who don't need to ask questions, or ask > sufficiently interesting questions that it is clear they are experts. ^^^^ it takes some serious effort to attain the level of 'expert'. (a) won't know 'silly' until you've offered your question for review by a certified master (you can't validate yourself, nor can your 'peers'). How would you know you're getting to that expert level yet, when asking questions is very much frowned up: "I heard a noise... ba-a-a-a-ad student!" <whack!> Now that's an education system I'd gladly see installed in the Netherlands. (b) who is going to show them how those 'high level' abstractions are actually to be implemented in production software? (I asked this once about database *engines* and got a similar answer: "we don't answer that; you'll know by the time you're an expert". Well, in my mind, I still keep a few car tires on reserve to serve Mandela style, just for the ones who gave that answer. Those men thus told me two things about themselves that time right there, and on my ethics scale, the both of 'em scored rock bottom on both accounts.) (c) and quite importantly, no joke: I appreciate it when people try to understand, show they've got to some point (initial effort) and then ask to doublecheck their guesses or request a hint where it goes from here. Better than staying quiet and screwing up. I may have learned to learn in a rather 'quiet' way, but that doesn't make me enforce others to do the same - though that would make life so much easier: for me, that is. After all, we don't all learn 'quietly'; it's not always the optimal protocol. ;-) What's the difference between a student and a master, when there's no talk (questions) permitted? (I love cats too much, so I'm sure we can spare a few students for that Schroedinger box: without looking (the noise they make), how do we know if there's a master (right spin) or a student (left spin) in there? Tough call.) Alas, apparently I'm not the only who was having his Grumpy Day today. :-) So, carry on, ask the questions and I'm sure they'll get answered, time, knowledge and energy permitting. -- Met vriendelijke groeten / Best regards, Ger Hobbelt -------------------------------------------------- web: http://www.hobbelt.com/ http://www.hebbut.net/ mail: g...@hobbelt.com mobile: +31-6-11 120 978 -------------------------------------------------- ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List openssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org
