From owner-freebsd-security Fri Aug 30 7:16:40 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-security@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3E72737B405 for ; Fri, 30 Aug 2002 07:16:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from snark.piermont.com (snark.piermont.com [166.84.151.72]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DF7A943E4A for ; Fri, 30 Aug 2002 07:16:30 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from perry@piermont.com) Received: by snark.piermont.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id C0A44D97DC; Fri, 30 Aug 2002 10:16:28 -0400 (EDT) To: "Karsten W. Rohrbach" Cc: mipam@ibb.net, Matthias Buelow , Stefan =?iso-8859-1?q?Kr=FCger?= , freebsd-security@FreeBSD.org, tech-security@netbsd.org, misc@openbsd.org Subject: Re: Long RSA keys References: <8765xtzb48.fsf@snark.piermont.com> <20020830020510.A76963@mail.webmonster.de> From: "Perry E. Metzger" Date: 30 Aug 2002 10:16:28 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20020830020510.A76963@mail.webmonster.de> Message-ID: <873cswph37.fsf@snark.piermont.com> Lines: 64 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org "Karsten W. Rohrbach" writes: > Perry E. Metzger(perry@piermont.com)@2002.08.29 16:03:03 +0000: > [...] > > If you think that you have something new and exciting to tell me that > > I've never heard of before, check if it has been published in Crypto > > or Eurocrypt or something first. If you don't know enough to read > > those conference proceedings, you don't know enough to have an > > intelligent opinion on the cost of building a machine to run djb's NFS > > factoring ideas. > > nice attitude. sounds a little bit like "640k is enough for everyone", > etc. Do you actually understand the NFS factoring algorithm or not? If you do not, on what basis are you estimating the cost of hardware to execute it? If you have no basis, then why do you think you know anything on the subject? > understanding as much as to conceive a certain concept, or at least > to work out an "intelligent opinion" is based on thinking, cognitive > processes, not just being able to read and understand technoid gibberish. If you think that the information needed to come to an intelligent conclusion on the subject is "technoid gibberish", perhaps your "cognitive processes" aren't operating on the information you need to state something reasonable on the subject. > i clearly see your experience, your knowledge. you're in the business for > quite a while. clinging to your experience so tightly, evolving hardline > thinking, such as above, might prove to be an obstacle, though. new > inventions, technologies, just came into existence through people who > got their own ego out of the way, and did what they envisioned. This is not a question of old scientist/new scientist. This is the old scientist telling a guy with a rope trying to lasso the moon that it is pretty far away, his rope is pretty short, and his arm is unlikely to be able to throw the rope that far in any case, and the guy with the rope saying "you're just not a creative thinker!" More to the point, when the computer scientist sees a guy claim in public that you can program computers to telepathically read minds and perhaps the claimant should learn how computers work, when the scientist hands him an intro text, it does nothing for the telepathy-claimants credibility to call the intro text "technoid gibberish". To be the young turk new scientist who embarrasses the old scientist, you first have to know the same basic facts the old scientist knows. Einstein didn't start out by saying "oh, that Newton guy, his stuff was `technoid gibberish'" to employ the term you seem to have used for a basic understanding of the field you are claiming to make pronouncements about. It is one thing for Dan Bernstein to claim a number field sieve machine has one likely cost and for Arjen Lenstra to disagree with him. Both of them have enough information to discuss the area intelligently -- both can read the literature and come to conclusions about it. Saying that the basic information on how this all works is "technoid gibberish" doesn't lend much credibility to your comments. Perry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message