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