Re: crypto wiki -- good idea, bad idea?

2005-12-13 Thread Jason Holt


On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, Paul Hoffman wrote:

Or should we just stick to wikipedia?  Is it doing a satisfactory job?


Also check out the Cryptography Reader:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiReader/Cryptography

Matt Crypto set up an article (to clean up) of the day replete with a bar 
graph of how done he thinks it is.


As to accuracy, there are several authors I respect who keep many of the 
crypto articles on their watchlists, so that we notice when people make 
changes.


I'm quite happy with a number of the pages in the reader, enough that I point 
my students to them and use the figures in my lecture slides.  I like the 
intersecting planes in the secret sharing article particularly:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing


of work. I proposed a few weeks ago (in the meta-discussion) to do it, but 
was concerned that doing so would step on toes and seem invasive. No one has 
responded to that, not even the people who flagged the article as needing 
work.


An old wikipedia saying is be bold in updating pages: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BBIUP



-J

-
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: crypto wiki -- good idea, bad idea?

2005-12-13 Thread Matt R
Travis H wrote:
 Would a wiki specifically for crypto distribute the burden enough to 
 be useful? Or should we just stick to wikipedia?  Is it doing a
 satisfactory job?

The English Wikipedia's crypto coverage is a mixed bag. Out of the 800+
articles, there's a handful of fairly-good entries (e.g. Data Encryption
Standard), yet more than a few abysmal entries. It's typically more current
than HAC or Applied Cryptography, yet not as comprehensive or consistent in
quality. My advice is to think of Wikipedia as collection of draft articles
that you can watch being constructed live.

I would propose that improving Wikipedia's cryptography articles would be a
better bet than starting a new crypto wiki from scratch (or even importing
articles from Wikipedia, as they're available under a free license). Wikipedia
has a lot of visibility and momentum behind it, and new specialist topic wikis
tend to fizzle out quite quickly, in my experience. One example is
http://www.infosecpedia.org

If anyone's interested in helping out on Wikipedia, people are *very* welcome.
There's a Cryptography WikiProject, dedicated to improving crypto articles:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cryptography
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Cryptography

Also, Wikipedia is a multilingual project. I believe the German, and more
recently the French Wikipedia editions have been quite active in this area. For
example, the French Crypto Portal:

   http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Portail_Cryptologie

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com



___ 
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! 
Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com

-
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]


crypto wiki -- good idea, bad idea?

2005-12-12 Thread Travis H.
Seems like a lot of new folks (myself included) ask questions that
have the following answer:

Read the literature, no there's no one site, that would be too much effort, c.

Would a wiki specifically for crypto distribute the burden enough to be useful?
Or should we just stick to wikipedia?  Is it doing a satisfactory job?

Your opinions welcome.
--
http://www.lightconsulting.com/~travis/  -- P=NP if (P=0 or N=1)
My love for mathematics is unto 1/x as x approaches 0.
GPG fingerprint: 50A1 15C5 A9DE 23B9 ED98 C93E 38E9 204A 94C2 641B

-
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: crypto wiki -- good idea, bad idea?

2005-12-12 Thread Paul Hoffman

At 9:57 AM -0600 12/12/05, Travis H. wrote:
Would a wiki specifically for crypto distribute the burden enough to 
be useful?

Or should we just stick to wikipedia?  Is it doing a satisfactory job?


I cannot answer the first question: I am leery of wikis that have 
open posting rights, and I am leery of trusting anyone to maintain 
the posting rights and document quality of a wiki without being paid 
(either in money or whuffie) to do so.


The second and third questions can be answered with no. Someone 
wrote a fairly poor article on VPNs. That article has been flagged as 
needing a lot of work. I proposed a few weeks ago (in the 
meta-discussion) to do it, but was concerned that doing so would step 
on toes and seem invasive. No one has responded to that, not even the 
people who flagged the article as needing work.


In other words, Wikipedia is trying to correct problems, but doesn't 
have the personpower to do so in a predictable fashion.


--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

-
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: crypto wiki -- good idea, bad idea?

2005-12-12 Thread Alexander Klimov
On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, Travis H. wrote:

 Seems like a lot of new folks (myself included) ask questions that
 have the following answer: Read the literature, no there's no one
 site, that would be too much effort, c. Would a wiki specifically
 for crypto distribute the burden enough to be useful?

The problem is not the effort on the writer's side (it was actually
done many times in the past), the problem is the effort on the
reader's side and there is no hope to solve it unless direct to brain
information downloading is invented :-)

 Or should we just stick to wikipedia?  Is it doing a satisfactory job?

You can decide it for youself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Cryptography

-- 
Regards,
ASK

-
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Re: crypto wiki -- good idea, bad idea?

2005-12-12 Thread Roy M. Silvernail
Travis H. wrote:

Would a wiki specifically for crypto distribute the burden enough to be useful?
Or should we just stick to wikipedia?  Is it doing a satisfactory job?
  

I'd read it.  More resources == better.  But keep the current Wikipedia
controversy in mind WRT the veracity of the contributed material.  Then
again, if it's a crypto wiki, I suppose we could expect some
credentialing system to be incorporated.  It could even be presented as
a tutorial.

-- 
Roy M. Silvernail is [EMAIL PROTECTED], and you're not
It's just this little chromium switch, here. - TFT
CRM114-procmail-/dev/null-bliss
http://www.rant-central.com


-
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]