[Cryptography] Rough Consensus Attack

[Robert L. Wilson]

> In fact, the nature of arguments of this sort - whether a deliberate attack or just arising by themselves - is that each side simply trumpets the virtues of its own approach, with only minor mention of the other approach.
Several posts have noted how these arguments apply far outside 
cryptography. This quote was directly about crypto, but it reminds me of 
what an outside "expert" told us when I recently was on a local campaign 
committee, approximately this: Never say something the opponent has said 
is bad, just trumpet your own virtues. (I did not like the idea of 
letting our opponents have veto power over what we could say...) The 
idea is sort of: When somebody goes into the voting booth, you can't 
predict whether he/she will remember all of what you said or just the 
part you quoted from your opponent, thereby reinforcing his/her ads. 
(I'll leave it for you to compare that advice to the negative political 
ads that are so prevalent...)

The IETF and other standards groups we have to care about don't 
typically have voting booths (although they may implement other schemes 
intended to give ballot privacy). But regardless of whether you are the 
good guy or the attacker, you still run the risk of reinforcing your 
opponent's arguments when you mention them. So this strategy has some basis.

Bob Wilson