Do Cryptographers burn?

[Ian Grigg]

Hadmut Danisch wrote:
> Maybe I'll explain a little bit more about the background:


Quite some story.  Most people seemed to assume
this demanded an answer from a *commercial*
perspective.

 From an academic perspective, there is a very
different flavour.  It's strongly about networking
and published papers.  So, in a sense, the real
world protects itself from the academic world
in a variety of ways.  Perhaps what we are trying
to say is that *all* academics burn ;)  Famously,
someone said that last year and caused a furor
("Maybe it's all snake oil..." or somesuch.)

For example, if you look at any popular crypto
system out in the real world, that was successful
by some measure, it doesn't include any fancy
academic stuff.  If the contents are beyond the
inclusion in basic crypto tomes, it just doesn't
seem to survive.


> ... thus they rejected my 
> dissertation with false expertises.


Your use of the word "expertise" has me confused,
is this an actual english word, or is there a
better word?  It seems that opinion is the right
one, to my mind, but that's not quite right.


> So this expertise is just ridiculous and won't have any chance at a
> court, except that it will take me again years for the lawsuit.


So, you have the University's answer - they will
just ride out the lawsuit, if you file?  It seems
that you have three options:  file a lawsuit and
prove you won't go away, because you want your
dissertation.  Second, publish your story, and
give up your dissertation.  Third, dump the lot,
and take up ditch digging.

I wouldn't necessarily agree that it makes sense
to fight it.  It sounds like you may have to fight
for more years than it is worthwhile, just to pick
up the dissertation.  And, by the time you get it,
that University's name might not be worthwhile.

OTOH, if you are going to stand up for academic
integrity, make sure that you are careful not to
publish anything that can be challenged.  E.g.,
this email does seem to have a lot of opinion in
it, and/or things that you claim but cannot prove.
In a real court case, your posts would be used
against you.

Maybe you should use the time wisely and do a
law degree instead of further academic work in
cryptography :)


> I then informed the IACR's board of directors and asked them whether
> an organization, where such a person can become a director can be
> trusted any longer in context of security and cryptography.
 >
> Surprisingly, they were not even surprised. The fully tolerate this
> and even consider this as normal. It looks as if they consider this
> kind of expertise as kind of self-evident. To help a colleague and
> protect him from legal trouble seems to be much more important than
> giving correct and reasonable expertises.


The fact that he is on the board of directors
for a club doesn't mean he knows anything about
the discipline.  The club may have elected him
for his accounting knowledge, or for any number
of unrelated reasons.  I suspect this is distinct
to the German situation, where directors might
be expected to be leaders in their field.  In
the Anglo world, directors are expected to be
appointed on their ability to help the organisation.
If we cared about their academic capabilities, then
things like tenure are a more important indicator.


> So what I found is fraud, extortion, false expertises. 


Sounds like you are in a loser's position all
around.  The University has the power to award,
and that's "how it should be."  They've decided
not to, so you lose.  You can't ever gain any
money or value from fighting.  You will lose a
lot of time and money, and the more you fight,
the less likely it is you will ever work in this
field again.  They know this.

You're also branded as a troublemaker.  This will
make it harder to work in academia or in commerce
in countries like Germany.  But, not all countries
nor all peoples think that University education is
where it's at, and some are hostile in inverse
proportion to how long you were incarcerated.


iang

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