Typing the Letters A-E-S Into Your Code (2009)

Re:Typing the Letters A-E-S Into Your Code (2009) by moron4hire on Saturday January 10, 2015 @09:18AM (#8866785)

What says any particular person will write said bugs? We have a word for automatically assuming that any particular individual holds any particular trait of the group of which they are a member without first confirming that person has that trait. It's called prejudice. And yes, you can be prejudiced towards your own in-group.

Good crypto code needs a good understanding of crypto and a good understanding of code. The person who has both is rare. Far too frequently, the situation you've described comes about because the only people writing crypto code are the people who understand crypto.

And I think the admonishment "don't write your own crypto code" is peer-pressuring people who have a good understanding of code from abstaining from gaining a good understanding of crypto.

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Re:Typing the Letters A-E-S Into Your Code (2009) by snowwrestler on Saturday January 10, 2015 @02:39PM (#8867661)

When it comes to putting bugs in software, I am prejudiced against the human race. :-)

Folks saying "don't write your own crypto" are really talking about production systems that will serve customers, employees, governments, etc. Crypto is not going to be a market differentiator; it just needs to work. So why not stand on the shoulders of many others and use a library that is already well tested and patched up?

But in terms of spending your own time to learn, I doubt many folks would say don't do that. Matasano even provides a bunch of freely available materials to do just that.

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