Monoculture

[kent at songbird.com]

On Tue, Sep 30, 2003 at 07:54:44PM -0400, Rich Salz wrote:
> Yes, it sometimes sucks to be a newcomer and treated with derision unless you
> can prove that you understand the current body of knowledge.  We should
> all try to be nicer.  But surely you can understand a cryptographer's
> frustration when a VPN -- what does that P stand for?

"Private".  Not a religious term, as far as I know.

>  -- shows flaws
> that are equivalent to a syntax error in a Java class.

I would think that the cryptographers in question would be even more
frustrated that so few products were available, to tell you the truth,
and would therefore be eager to help when someone makes an honest
attempt.   

But alas, that seems not to be the case.

And, given the recent set of widely publicized flaws in openssl and
openssh, I think that concern about monoculture in cryptography software
is pretty damn well founded.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
crispin at icann.org,kent at songbird.com         lonesome."
p: +1 310 823 9358  f: +1 310 823 8649               -- Mark Twain

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