debunking snake oil

[Jim Youll]

Crossroads is an undergraduate journal.

We'd do well to single out more worth targets for public ridicule  
than CS undergrads.

If you want to help the author, why not educate, rather than  
mocking?  He's obviously been motivated to think about the subject  
matter and to even take the bold step up publishing something.

If you must scold, aim at the advisor, then. But I don't see much to  
be gained by scolding in this case.  Pick someone who's asking for it  
- the vendors of all the products that don't do what their buyers  
hope and wish they would do...

On Aug 31, 2007, at 11:35 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:

> travis+ml-cryptography at subspacefield.org writes:
>
>> So, when you find a particularly obnoxious dilettante going on about
>> his bone-headed unbreakable scheme, please forward it to me and I'll
>> see about breaking it, and then publish the schemes and the  
>> results on
>> a web site for publicly "educating" them.  Honestly, there's probably
>> no better way to educate people than to see schemes submitted and
>> broken, and I'm not sure there's a good site for it, although there
>> are plenty of books.  Unfortunately, these types won't be bothered to
>> buy books since they already know everything.
>
> Here's a particularly moronic scheme:
>        http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds11-3/xorencrypt.html
> -- 
> "If a person keeps faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he
>  can count on waking up some morning to find himself one of the
>  competent ones of his generation."
> --William James
>
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