

What does the NSA think of academic cryptographers? - robinhouston
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2059

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tptacek
Interesting to do a where-are-they-now with the names here. Don Beaver, for
instance --- the "charismatic preacher" \--- is now a Sr. Software Engineer at
Apple, after a 4-year stint at Google doing stuff like security for GFS.

~~~
pbsd
Ueli Maurer continues to be one of the foremost theoretical cryptographers out
there. He is responsible for the notion of indifferentiability, which has been
quite useful in designing hashing modes out of block ciphers / compression
functions and proving them 'secure'.

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D_Alex
In dismissing the "philosophical" research into cryptography, the NSA writer
makes the same error of judgement as the business leaders and politicians make
in dismissing research into the fundamentals of, say, physics.

The most significant discoveries either come directly from or are built upon
foundations of such research.

~~~
icegreentea
A comment in a blog offers some potential context - namely that the wider
crypto field had rediscovered differential cryptanalysis within the last few
years. My understanding is that the public discovery of a previously NSA held
technique is the type of stuff that the NSA writer was likely fixating on.
Likely, the NSA writer attended the conference to get an idea of if the NSA
would be losing another trump card.

It's also possible that the NSA writer may have already heard of all these
theoretical debates before.

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voltagex_
From the "How to submit an article" section:

N.B. If the following instructions are a mystery to you and your local ADP
support is no help, please feel free to call the CRYPTOLOG editor on
963-3123s.

Send a hard copy accompanied by a diskette (either 3.5" or 5.25") to the
editor at P0541 in 2E062, Ops. 1, or send via e-mail to mebutle@p.nsa.

For maximum efficiency (as far as possible within the limits of your word
processor):

• do not type your article in capital letters

• do not double-space between lines

• but do double-space between paragraphs

• do not indent for a new paragraph

• classify all paragraphs

• do not format an HD diskette as DD or vice-versa

• label your diskette: identify hardware (operating system: DOS or UNIX),
density of medium, and word processor

• put your name, organization, building and phone number on the diskette

CRYPTOLOG is published in FrameMaker on a Sun HPW.

If you do not have access to FrameMaker, ASCII format is preferred

~~~
dsl
If anyone is curious email addresses are divided up based on the directorate
you are in. In this case the CRYPTOLOG editor (P02) is under the Analysis and
Production Directorate.

Edit: if it isn't obvious, directorates and units under them are assigned
letter and number designations so the organizational structure of the NSA
isn't immediately obvious to outsiders (i.e. "I work in Q57" vs "I work in the
polygraph office")

~~~
voltagex_
Where'd you get that info?

~~~
jackweirdy
He works in the Polygraph Office

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mturmon
So funny to read, and with smart commentary by Aaronson about the divergence
of interests between the NSA and the university crypto community.

I have pitched tech to the NSA before, and it seemed like they were more
interested in benchmarking the capabilities of the outside world than in
actually adopting the technology we were pitching.

~~~
phkahler
>> I have pitched tech to the NSA before, and it seemed like they were more
interested in benchmarking the capabilities of the outside world than in
actually adopting the technology we were pitching.

That should be step one. They should not be interested in what you were
pitching without benchmarking first right?

~~~
mturmon
Yes, but benchmarking appeared to be step one of one total.

I kid! My quantum computation friends had much more success, for a while.

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IvyMike
Note that the conference happened in 1992.

Non-government cryptography has come a long way and become a lot more
practical in the subsequent 22 years.

~~~
desdiv
Minor nitpick: I think you meant "public cryptography" instead of "non-
government cryptography".

Differential cryptanalysis was publicly unveiled in 1990; IBM first discovered
it in 1974, but NSA came in and classified it.

~~~
pavelrub
Differential cryptanalysis was known to the NSA before IBM "discovered" it.

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danieltillett
The last two comments are interesting. I am sure someone here knows who wrote
the NSA report from the information not redacted.

~~~
thret
"My Hungarian-American wife Donna and I spent three weeks in the country
[...]." \- page 19 of the document.

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barrkel
FWIW, this is much more readable if the CSS justify rule is disabled.

~~~
danielnixon
Related[0]:

"Many people with cognitive disabilities have a great deal of trouble with
blocks of text that are justified (aligned to both the left and the right
margins). The spaces between words create "rivers of white" running down the
page, which can make the text difficult for some people to read. This failure
describes situations where this confusing text layout occurs. The best way to
avoid this problem is not to create text layout that is fully justified
(aligned to both the left and the right margins)."

[0]
[http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/F88.html](http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/F88.html)

~~~
edwintorok
You shouldn't turn on justification without also turning on hyphenation. If
you add 'hyphens: auto' and '-moz-hyphens: auto' then it looks much better on
Firefox. Chrome doesn't support hyphenation though...

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voltagex_
Surprisingly, there hasn't been much discussion of Cryptolog previously.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407036)

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aet
If you bring in an expert practitioner from any field and plop them down in an
academic conference they will have similar notes.

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frozenport
Do you believe the culture has change din the last 20 years?

