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by some_furry 21 days ago
> You're argument is that I shouldn't think of NIST as a patsy for the NSA,

Incorrect. My argument is that they aren't the same entity.

The thing you said is a whole different argument. "I like waffles" "So you hate pancakes" is happening.

> Incentives are basically all I consider when trying to establish true motive. But you're not required to consider motive when there's a history or pattern.

Yes you are. You need to consider both factors. Why render yourself willfully ignorant? That's not how you arrive at truth.

2 comments

> Incorrect. My argument is that they aren't the same entity.

Your mind is going to be blown when you learn about proxy organizations and cut-outs.

NIST does a lot of things that have nothing to do with computer security!

Would you indict NIST MEP https://www.nist.gov/mep/about-nist-mep as being an NSA project without evidence?

The Godfather Part 2 demonstrated overwhelmingly that a good part of Vito Corleone’s ill-gotten gains went to strengthening his community. The Italians in his neighborhood adored him.
What does a work of fiction have to do with whether two distinct government entities are the same thing or not?

That's beyond moving goalposts. Just take the L, dude.

I was making the point that if you have subverted the NIST to do your bidding in what appears to be a neutral way, obviously you’re going to have some feel-good projects in your portfolio. Otherwise, the folks that the Soviets called “useful idiots” wouldn’t have anything to point to to exonerate them.
You're all over the place except where the discussion was actually taking place.
> Incorrect. My argument is that they aren't the same entity.

Did I claim they were the same?

> The thing you said is a whole different argument. "I like waffles" "So you hate pancakes" is happening.

uh.... you started it? What are we even doing? I'm not above this kinda comment, but I kinda assumed you were? I'd be interested if you have a take I haven't considered; but not if we're just going to try to make straw man of the other.

> Yes you are. [required to consider motive]. Why render yourself willfully ignorant? That's not how you arrive at truth.

I'm not looking for a pure truth. I'm just looking for a heuristic that's just functional enough to keep me, and my data safe. I don't even want to make a perfect is the enemy of good argument. I'm just pointing out, where my line is. I lack the maths knowledge, practical experience, fucks left to give, and spoons remaining for the things I want to spend my time one. Evaluating every bit of information I could possibly gather, and witholding and judgement is a cute idea, but I've got better things to do. NIST has in tandem with the NSA, lied, and shipped a broken crypto system. Let's pretend I don't consider that to be permanently disqualifying, resign, stand up a completely new group from scratch, black tag/non-salvageable. They've burned the default good will everyone starts with, and then peed on it for good measure. Now they're hiding information AGAIN?!

Nah, I could waste my time trying to find the objective truth. Or I could give NIST the finger, and say, make the person with the remaining good will and trust and fucks left to spend on NIST happy. Only then come back to me. Until then, I refuse, and for the same reason I refuse to review LLM PRs; I'm trying to do things, and [they] are trying to DoS my brain.

Ideally, you'd stop helping [the them], or answer the remaining objections line by line, and publicly? Then I'd have someone else with enough good will that I can trust. Because NIST is doing the opposite if they want my confidence.