2001-01-05

Well opentrax@email.com (aka Jessem.) how did talk go?

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Were you laughing stock? 

I could not tell. 

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Did you ramble on?

I tried not to, but I suspect that at times -some- of my
points did not carry effectively.

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Did your lack of expertise become more than obvious in talk? 
Well I'm not a security expert and I'm not an encryption expert,
and I stated that clearly in the talk.
Beyond that, my points remain within the knowledge that could
be understandable by all that attended. The small crowd
was diverse, but educate, and at times some would chime in 
with my points.

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Wasn't there a heckler or two?

Yes, there was, always, someone that did
try to abstract a point into something else.
Did that person have a valid point? Perhaps,
but if that person did not make a point within
2 or 3 sentences, I cut them off and continued
my talk.

This was rude, to say the least. However, one
person actually tried to suggest that I presented
NO alternatvies to SSH. Even from my notes, it can
be seen that that is NOT the case.

----
In that case, were your suggestions for an alternative BETTER
than SSH?

NO. Plainly, simply, no.

In relative terms, a solution does not need
to be better to be the correct solution.
As an example, I could cut meat loaf with
a LASER beam, but that does not make it "better".
One could argue that the LASER is more precise,
wastes less meat, and even could split the atoms
more evenly, but that still does not make it
better than my knife.

One at this point could argue, I'm suggesting
an old fashion solution, and that I should use
a LASER beam. However, I'm using the knife
at some expense. Mainly, I now require power,
the power company and a wall outlet to cut
my meat loaf.

For want of a nail, I could continue in a
vicous circle about the "correct" or
"better" alternative, but have I solved
my original problem..... Did I really
have the problem I thought? Couldn't
I just forego the knife and eat the damm
meat loaf with my hands..... I am hungry. :-)

----
Well, Jesse some people think you are still a moron,
on drugs, or are trolling for a rise from some people?

Hmm... I guess they are really going to be pissed off
that I called Ron Rivest a liar, and noted that
Bruce Schneier corrected himself in "SECRETS and LIES",
by saying in the preface, "The error of 'Applied 
Cryptography' is that I didn't talk at all about the
context. I talked about cryptography as if it were
The Answer(tm). I was pretty naive." ...."A colleague
once told me that the world was full of bad security
systems designed by people who read 'Applied Cryptography'."


My complete notes will be posted to the website in
5 calendar days. The URL is:

http://www.svbug.com/past/