Cluelessness V.S. Lack of Knowledge

[Bill Stewart]

At 03:53 PM 2/24/96 -0500, Adam Shostack <adam at homeport.org> wrote:
>	If someone shows up, having read the sci.crypt FAQ and/or
>Applied Cryptography, I think that their questions will be answered
>without flames.  But if people fail to read whats out there, and want
>to be spoon fed, well, thats another matter.

Even if they want to be spoon fed, they'll get a fair bit of tolerance
here, though they'll get pointed at the FAQs and books.  sci.crypt is
another good place.  Everybody's a newbie once; lack of knowledge
is just an opportunity.

It's folks who show up saying "I've got an unbreakable cryptosystem,
nyahh, nyahh, and it doesn't even use any algorithms, and it's so proprietary
you can't see it" that get flamed, and who try to sell snake oil while
claiming it's the hottest thing since pseudo-random number generators.

        [ SERIOUS OFF, NOISE ON ]

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#--
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts at ix.netcom.com / billstewart at attmail.com +1-415-442-2215
# http://www.idiom.com/~wcs     Pager +1-408-787-1281