Talk:Daniel J. Bernstein

Unsourced
"A selection of quotations from his messages to various mailing lists in 1997 follows."


 * Just because it's automatic doesn't mean it works.
 * Anyway, I'm interested in what works, not in philosophical bullshit.
 * (In response to another poster's assertion that "As today's unices are very stable, crashing operating systems are not an issue.") Don't be silly. Every minute there's a UNIX system crashing somewhere.
 * There's an engineering term for systems like that: "garbage".
 * I'm not interested in security through obscurity. I want real security mechanisms, solutions that work for _everybody_. Yes, that's a lot more difficult than randomly blowing away "suspicious" portions of the Internet mail infrastructure, but it's the Right Thing To Do.
 * Be careful what you wish for you just might get it.
 * That section of the fetchmail man page is wild speculation; it has never had any relation to reality.
 * From a security perspective, if you're connected, you're screwed.
 * I don't care where you think your resources are going. If you know, show me the measurements. If you don't, stop wasting my time.
 * CAPS has surpassed ETRN in the "Most absurd use of port 25" contest.
 * Some parts of RFC 821 are simply too absurd to tolerate.
 * Make up your mind. Do you want to declare that your filters are effective, or do you want to find out how effective they actually are?
 * In general, the Internet was not designed to accommodate deliberate failures to communicate.
 * (In response to another poster's assertion that Windows NT is easier to configure than an otherwise-similar Unix system) Indeed. With NT, I can usually see in a matter of minutes that what I'm trying to do simply can't be done with the available software.
 * Profile. Don't speculate.
 * Compression saves bandwidth. What a surprise.
 * I don't have much respect for the people who run the Internet, but as a practical matter there are certain lines that can't be crossed without their approval.
 * The average user doesn't give a damn what happens, as long as (1) it works and (2) it's fast.
 * I'm not saying that this is how things should be. I'm saying that this is how things are.
 * I do engineering, not religion.
 * Duh-duh-duh... Buffer Overflow!
 * I thank God for not making me a computer scientist.
 * It seems some people do not have atomically synchronized watches and some do
 * I will be starting the lecture in SEVEN ... SIX ... FIVE ... ...
 * This is UNIX. Stop acting so helpless!
 * The new glue is, unfortunately, ignored by recent versions of the BIND cache; the detailed technical explanation for this is that the BIND company is a bunch of idiots.
 * I have discovered that there are two types of command interfaces in the world of computing: good interfaces and user interfaces. Source
 * Unless you have a hundred unanswered questions in your mind you haven't read enough...