The Fallacy of Cracking Contests

Tom Vogt tv at wlwonline.de
Wed Dec 16 05:44:47 PST 1998



Bruce Schneier wrote:
> 
>         The Fallacy of Cracking Contests
>                       Bruce Schneier
> 
[...]
> 1.  The contests are generally unfair.
[...]
> 2.  The analysis is not controlled.
[...]
> 3.  Contest prizes are rarely good incentives.

I'd like to add:

4.  a breaker is not likely to tell

at least part of the people entering such a contest who have what it
takes to be successful will NOT report a success. in many cases, waiting
until the seemingly secure product actually ships and THEN applying the
gained knowledge will yield far greater rewards.






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