The wisdom of the ill informed

[Nicolas Williams]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 07:16:17AM -0700, Allen wrote:
> Given this, the real question is, /"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"/ 

Putting aside the fact that cryptographers aren't custodians of
anything, it's all about social institutions.

There are well-attended conferences, papers published online and in many
journals, etcetera.  So it's not so difficult for people who don't know
anything about security and crypto to eventually figure out who does, in
the process also learning who else knows who the experts are.

For example, in the IETF there's an institutional structure that makes
finding out who to ask relatively simple.  Large corporations tend to
have some experts in house, even if they are only expert in finding the
real experts.

We (society) have new experts joining the field, with very low barriers
to entry (financial and political barriers to entry are minimal -- it's
all about brain power), and diversity amongst the existing experts.

There's no major personal gain to be had, besides fame, and too much
diversity and openness for anyone to have a prayer of manipulating the
field undetected for too long.

When it comes to expertise in crypto, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
seems like a relatively simple problem.  I'm sure it's much, much more
difficult a problem for, say, police departments, financial
organizations, intelligence organizations, etc...

Nico
-- 

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