Ask Slashdot: Can Bruce Schneier Be Trusted? 330
An anonymous reader writes "Security guru Bruce Schneier is, among other things, a world renowned cryptography expert, author of several popular books, and a second-order internet meme. He is also an outspoken critic of the NSA, in particular the massive NSA surveillance programs disclosed over the summer by Edward Snowden. Schneier has been involved in reviewing the leaked documents and has put in effort to determine which cryptosystems should still be considered safe. I'm a big fan of Bruce Schneier, but just to play devil's advocate, let's say, hypothetically, that Schneier is actually in cahoots with the NSA. Who better to reinstate public trust in weakened cryptosystems? As an exercise in security that Schneier himself may find interesting, what methods are available for proving (or at least affirming) that we can trust Bruce Schneier?"
Just double the encryption (Score:5, Funny)
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I will never trust ... (Score:5, Funny)
... Anonymous Coward. There are some very suspicious posts he makes. And besides, he seems to never sleep.
See if you can build a bridge out of him (Score:3, Funny)
SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:2, Funny)
Just be sure to have enough matches!
Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:witch (Score:5, Funny)
I am absolutely certain that Bruce Schneier weighs the same as a duck.
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Funny)
Let the whitch hunt begin!
Whitch hunt would that be?
Can Bruce Schneier Be Trusted? (Score:5, Funny)
Why not? I have his SHA256 hash, right here, on this USB stick.
But wait! Am I sure I spelled "Schneierer" correctly?!?
Re:Trust no one (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if you know your comic-book history, you'd know that Batman had a homosexual relationship with Robin and was shown in the comics in bed [comicvine.com] with him.
If there's anything one learns from applying for a security clearance or worldwide politics in general, it's that nobody trusts homosexuals. I trust the Joker. Not only is he not a homosexual, and therefore trustworthy, but a proven innovator with plenty of experience thinking outside the box. I trust the Joker. Not Batman, as Robin has too much filthy blackmail on him.
-- Ethanol-fueled
I trust Cat Woman, and if she is homosexual that would be so hot.
Re:Trust no one (Score:3, Funny)
But from whom do you learn the math? A teacher? A textbook? Unless you derive it all yourself from base axioms, you do have to trust someone at some point.
A proper math education starts from basic axioms. A teacher should merely guide a math student through derivation of that mathematical knowledge which is taught, all from base axioms. In my undergrad, math majors were required to take a course on the axiomatic foundation of math (set theory). The classes that depended on that built the foundations of algebra, analysis, etc. upon those same axioms. The subsequent built upon those results, etc.
One problem with crypto is that we've never seen a hardness result of any of this shit. Until somebody proves P!=NP and builds an NP-complete cryptosystem, I won't trust any of it. The math is inherently untrustable without a proof of trustworthyness. The other problem is in implementation. All the math in the world won't save your data from a shit implementation that leaves you open to side-channel attack, etc.
Society does not break down with a lack of trust, society proceeds, as always, with constant implicit and explicit cost-benefit analysis.
Re: Learn math (Score:2, Funny)
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