Adam Shostack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >Let me propose another answer to Perry's question: > "Wearing a millstone around your neck to ward off vampires." > >This expresses both ends of a lose/lose proposition: > -- a burdensome solution > -- to a fantastically unimportant problem.
That sounds a bit like "unicorn insurance" ("We've taken out insurance against unicorns, and we know that it's effective because we haven't been attacked by any unicorns yet"), which is used for silly threat models. However, this is slightly different from what Perry was suggesting. There seem to be at least four subclasses of problem here: 1. "???" : A solution based on a misunderstanding of what the real problem is. 2. "Unicorn insurance": A solution to a nonexistent problem. 3. "???": A solution to a problem created artificially in order to justify its solution (or at least to justify publication of an academic paper containing a solution). 4. "PKI": A solution in search of a problem. Peter. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]