[Home]RossAnderson

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Security and crypto researcher at CambridgeUniversity.




ChiarkPerson's impression:

Can't stop... they're following me. I can hear the helicopters, just over the horizon. Now listen. You have to know: they're coming for you. They're coming for everybody, maybe not today, but soon, soon. They're after me now because I know, I know, and I'm telling you, and you have to listen, you have to tell people, they're planning and scheming. What do you mean who? Them. They. The ones in control. They're after you and only I can stop them because only I know the truth and that's why they want to get rid of me so you have to tell people, tell them you've seen me, tell them I'm alive, make sure the word gets out. They're coming! They're coming! Aaaaaargh!

Would dearly love to be kidnapped by elves in black suits who drawl 'Doctorrrrr Anderrrrrrson', so that (a) he is proved right and (b) he can then save freedom from the Evil System using his slow-motion kung-fu.  --ChiarkPerson
Damn, you posted the joke before I could.  You do know that this guy has given evidence in several court cases illustrating real exploits that have actually happened?  Whilst, yes, he tends towards the 'big companies are stupid' point of view, he has some real evidence to support this view. 
"Some" is an understatement, actually. There're a *lot*. - MoonShadow
(Decent example, he did the research and sent evidence showing how to trivially defeat a certain (french I think) banks system.  They ignored him and used the system anyway.  The exploit happened, and, IIRC they tried to ridicule him in court.)  --Vitenka
I've never ridiculed his insistence that all security systems are vulnerable. Of course they are. And usually you don't have to do whatever weird and wonderful liquid-nitrogen-and-laser exploit he comes up with either, you just have to blackmail the right person about their affair. No, it's his paranoia that I find so amusing. --ChiarkPerson
I don't see any paranoia about it.  He simply says "This is a problem, and it will be exploited and no one will take me seriously about it"  - and then no one takes him seriously, and it happens.  Again and again.  He's not the only security researcher who feels this way, BTW - he's simply the one who happened to be our lecturer (and is a very good one)  --Vitenka
Didn't you read what I wrote? I don't have a problem with that. It's his paranoia. You know, the way he goes off about how MI5 are watching us and the government's out to get us and Microsoft has bugged his phone line and before the ink's dry on the identity cards we'll all be in gulags. --ChiarkPerson
Um, you know, you may want to check how much of that is in his writing, and how much is in your interpretation of his writing.  He states what is possible, and then he states the potential risks.  That's what security is (it has that in common with intelligence)  He is also, remember, mostly lecturing to ComputerScience? students.  Who tend to enjoy anti MicroSoft? jokes more than is healthy.  --Vitenka




He does generally make very good points, though. And a lot of the papers on his [homepage] make excellent reading. When MoonShadow realised just how much of Ross's worldview was based on direct experience of what happens when assumptions like this is secure, no-one's ever going to bother to do this and that's way too paranoid fail, MoonShadow developed a lot of respect for him.



Crypto; see also PrivacyMatters

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