That's the thing about politics... they touch everything. There's a popular youtuber that I like, he's got a funny saying "You might not fuck with politics, but politics will fuck with you!" Fits well here.
You might wanna ignore politics when talking about something that should be pure math, but now that we're talking about why crypto is going to be the standards that all commercial software must support. Suddenly we now need to consider how confident we are in something. And really, that's all crypto boils down to is confidence in the difficulty of some maths. Was this recommended (soon mandated) with more or less care then the other options? How would we be able to tell. Is NIST likely to remake their previous unethical mistakes?
No. They don't. The level at which politics has actually intersected with my life in the past year is zero. I suspect the same is true for the majority of people in the US.
Your politics are mostly a fashion choice. You don't need to put them on display in literally ever conversation. You also cannot possibly change the world around you with this behavior so I can't understand why so many people feel the need to engage in it.
> Suddenly we now need to consider
The government is massive. You always need to consider this. Pretending that a choice of a single federal official is the difference maker here takes bizarre fashion choices into the completely absurd. The only thing you're doing is alienating half the audience with churlish behavior.
>The level at which politics has actually intersected with my life in the past year is zero.
Road maintenance, sewer connections, water and air quality, food safety, and a million other things that you interact with daily are all results of various levels of politics.
> Your politics are mostly a fashion choice. You don't need to put them on display in literally ever conversation. You also cannot possibly change the world around you with this behavior so I can't understand why so many people feel the need to engage in it.
Given your obvious disgust with someone else thinking or talking about it. (You weren't tagged, you decided to invite yourself into the conversation to proclaim that someone else is wrong for understanding the world differently from you) It's not much of a shock you can't understand why.
> you also cannot possibly change the world around you with this behavior
This feels like the thing you're actually mad about. Complaining at other people for talking about politics (instead of ignoring them) will have even less of an effect. If you want to have an impact ask more questions, don't berate people for not being as smart as you already are, or for daring to see things differently from the way you see them.
As for the change in the world I want to see. First, I want people to be nicer to each other. This us vs them thing needs to stop. Second, I don't need to change the world, I'm happy to just improve my little corner of it a bit. Security (and crypto) is my corner; and NIST has made some mistakes that I find problematic. The idea that leadership of any org *does* influence an org, isn't normally controversial, so if the leadership changes. It's good to know the trust level is gonna change. If the leadership changes in a less trustworthy direction. I'd hope more people learn about it, so blind trust in NIST drops. I would call that a small improvement.
> The government is massive. You always need to consider this. Pretending that a choice of a single federal official is the difference maker here takes bizarre fashion choices into the completely absurd. The only thing you're doing is alienating half the audience with churlish behavior.
I mean, the people replying to you while you rage at them must care a bit about the politics of the system. So I can't imagine that calling something they care about a "fashion choice", and then insulting them wouldn't feel alienating. Is this a do as I say, not as I do kinda thing?
> i doubt the Trump admin has strongly vested interest in which post-quantum scheme is selected
That's not the argument being made, you're using that as a strawman to distract from the actual position, which is that indiscriminate layoffs (which is what DOGE is doing) reduce institutional competence and increase the likelihood that whatever scheme is selected is not fit for purpose. Address that argument, not the one you've invented in your head.
my point is merely that the quality of discussion in the replies to GGP are going to be bad [0][1][2], the relevance is tenuous, and it crowds out content based discussion. of course, now my content-based questions are getting downvoted.
> reduce institutional competence and increase the likelihood
most replies interpreted it the same way I did, likely due to the reference to 'loyalties' & 'trust'.
e: and yes, i am aware of the history around nist and crypto