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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

> Hey Ethan, Did you receive the invite? We can also setup a chat with our ex-NSA post-Quantum hash function experts after we get the initial confusion out of the way. Best, David

It is a great example of someone (the "expert") convincing a non-technical person that they are the "ninja rockstar 11x post-quantum hash function expert".

I've seen this many times. Managers / owners don't have ability to assess who is an expert and who isn't. So whoever talks more convincingly is the "ninja rockstar". After that they can do no wrong. Also after that somehow admitting publicly that the person they picked is a scam artist becomes pretty hard, because it also means admitting to their own mistake of believing them.

Others who see what's going on, leave and this this eventually leads to the whole ship sinking.

Oh and accusations of drunkenness of course, those are always so constructive and helpful.

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> We can also setup a chat with our ex-NSA post-Quantum hash function experts

Is there a modern secure hash function considered to be under threat from quantum computing? I was under the impression there isnt one.

It's scary to see marketing spiels thrown into technical discussions, it's even worse when the thread is released as some sort of defense and those less informed see the big words and appeal-to-authority name dropping.

It's only asymmetric crypto used today that's broken under quantum. Symmetric and Hashes should be OK.

Grover's algorithm means you need to double the length of your hashes, but that hardly puts sha-512 in danger. Even sha-256 is safer than a naive calculation would suggest:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.09383

> I've seen this many times. Managers / owners don't have ability to assess who is an expert and who isn't. So whoever talks more convincingly is the "ninja rockstar". After that they can do no wrong. Also after that somehow admitting publicly that the person they picked is a scam artist becomes pretty hard, because it also means admitting to their own mistake of believing them.

I am seeing that a lot right now in public services (I entered a year and a half ago). I am looking at decade-old project going nowhere and managers trying to plug it into anything that would justify its existence (poisonning other agencies in the process).

> Others who see what's going on, leave and this this eventually leads to the whole ship sinking.

>It is a great example of someone (the "expert") convincing a non-technical person that they are the "ninja rockstar 11x post-quantum hash function expert".

It's hilarious that he thought that would work with a security researcher at MIT.

Sonstebo isn't a developer and the conversation continued well after this. What is your point.

My point is it’s funny. It’s a group of charlatans dealing with a competent person for the first time.

He's not an MIT researcher AFAIK. He's affiliated with DCI, which runs under the MIT banner. MIT actually had a favorable article in their review that DCI took issue with--but of course they were both going after a Swedish contract to create an e-money. IOTA survived the cut, which probably infuriates them even more.

One can find good cryptographers outside MIT, you know.

Not my point, but yes.

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