Re: The Pain of Cryptography

David Wagner wrote:

> Phil Carmody  wrote:
>
> > The firstname "David", and the surname "Wagner" do not necessarily 
> > unambiguously define a single human being, so I'd not be hugely 
> > surprised if the trusted cryptographer we all know and love were 
> > to say "not me guv'". I could just believe "crikey, me brother's 
> > stag party on 8th Oct was a monster, I don't remember writing that 
> > at all, I'd even forgotten that I'm a professor at UCB!".
>
> :-)
>
> Nope, that was me.  I don't even have a stag party to blame it on, alas.
> I just failed to see the attack.  Embarrassing.  But, it's a good argument
> for public review of such schemes...

Yes, I think this scenario helps make the argument for dissimilar public 
review of crypto schemes - two or more independent reviewers should 
examine a proposed system in a systematic way established by each 
reviewer, then executed by each reviewer, then made available to the 
public. Both won't necessarily look at the same characteristics the same 
way. Kind of like what happened, but not exactly, nor was it planned to 
happened that way. The outcome is not at all embarrassing for anyone, in 
my opinion. I expect Hongjun Wu picked up and carried on his analysis at 
the points where your analysis ended.


John A. Malley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]