
Rating Agencies Shared Data, and Wall St. Seized on It - nice1
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/business/24rating.html
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adulau
“They have to explain how they do things, but that sometimes allowed people to
game it.”

Does this mean the obscurity of the rating scheme would have helped to avoid
the gaming on it by the banks? I don't think so. Yes, knowing how the rating
is done would help to trick them. Like any function, as long as you know the
parameters, you can modify the input.

But increasing the obscurity of the rating scheme would generate much more
issues. The Kerckhoffs' principle is "valid" in cryptography and this is also
applicable in the financial sector.

