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Schneier Calls Quantum Cryptography Impressive But Pointless
KindMind writes "Bruce Schneier writes in Wired that quantum cryptography, while an awesome technology, is actually pointless (that is, of no commercial value). His point is that the science of cryptography is not the weak point, but the other links in the chain (like people, etc.) are where it breaks down."
Nothing says "middle manager" like someone who can only argue by making up analogies.
There, fixed that for you.
I hope you realize that you've just pulled the shortest summary of the Emperor's New Clothes story.
The slightly longer version is this: an Emperor hired two... well, what today we'd call consultants or contractors, to weave him the most fabulous clothes ever made. So the guys just wasted the time and lived the good life on the Emperor's money, and not only they were nowhere near getting read, they hadn't even _started_. (Or maybe they were still painting UML sketches to seem like they're doing something;) So at one point, when the project was waaay overdue already, the Emperor started to want to see some results. So the two guys tell him that their cloth is so special that only very smart people see it, and stupid people can't see it at all. And they pretend to show him some empty air. Fearing that people will catch on that he's stupid, the emperor pretends to see the cloth. Then the same charade is repeated with the nobles and advisors, who too pretend to see the fabulous cloth. And when they have to pretend to be ready, they "dress" the emperor in the new "clothes" and parrade him naked through town, where the townspeople too pretend to see the clothes, lest someone catches wind that they're stupid.
In the original story, a kid shouting "the emperor is naked" is all it takes to unralvel the whole charade. IRL, most likely the people would have patted each other on the back and congratulated each other for not being as stupid as that simpleton child.
And I find that the story is an almost literal example of the burgeoning snake-oil business in IT nowadays. The exact same excuse is used: "if you can't see the fabulous benefits of our snake oil, it's only because you're stupid, ignorant, a has-been, a dinosaur, etc." You could rewrite the same story with "security/programming/IT consultants" as the two con artists, "reduced TCO" or "synergy" or "security" or "scalability" or any other buzzword-du-jour for the non-existent clothes, and cast a CIO and his yes-men as the emperor and his court... and the story wouldn't even be a fable. It would be a documentary of something that literally happens every day, exactly like that.
Well, except that they'd fire the guy shouting "the emperor is naked", congratulate each other for getting rid of that incompetent has-been, and pay for the rest of their lives to keep that crap snake-oil running. In our days, the two con artists get a fat maintenance contract to keep the Emperor's new clothes in best shape.
Now I don't know if Bruce is right or wrong, but you haven't addressed that either. You just decided that he's too stupid if he doesn't drink the Kool Aid. It's the Emperor's New Clothes all over again.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Nothing says "eternal low level peon" like someone who pisses and moans about the techniques used by more valuable people.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.