Right, what you are saying makes some intuitive sense, but I can only update my beliefs based on the evidence I do have, not on the evidence I lack.
In addition, as far as I can tell, cryptography relies much more heavily on innovation than on feats of expensive engineering; and innovation is hard to pull off while working by yourself inside of a secret bunker. To be sure, some very successful technologies were developed exactly this way: the Manhattan project, the early space program and especially the Moon landing, etc. However, these were all one-off, heavily focused projects that required an enormous amount of effort.
When I think of the NSA, I don’t think of the Manhattan project; instead, I see a giant quotidian bureaucracy. They do have a ton of money, but they don’t quite have enough of it to hire every single credible crypto researcher in the world—especially since many of them probably wouldn’t work for the NSA at any price unless their families’ lives were on the line. So, the NSA can’t quite pull off the “community in a bottle” trick, which they’d need to stay one step ahead of all those Siberians.
Yes and I fully agree with you. I am just being pedantic about this point:
I can only update my beliefs based on the evidence I do have, not on the evidence I lack.
I agree with this philosophy, but my argument is that the following is evidence we do not have:
Due to Snowden and other leakers, we actually know what NSA’s cutting-edge strategies involve[...]
Since I have little confidence that, if the NSA had advanced tech, Snowden would have disclosed it; the absence of this evidence should be treated as quite weak evidence of absence and therefore I wouldn’t update my belief about the NSA’s supposed advanced technical knowledge based on Snowden.
I agree that it has a low probability for the other reasons you say, though. (And also that people who think setting other peoples’ mousetraps on fire is a legitimate tactic might not simultaneously be passionate about designing the perfect mousetrap.)
Sorry for not being clear about the argument I was making.
Right, what you are saying makes some intuitive sense, but I can only update my beliefs based on the evidence I do have, not on the evidence I lack.
In addition, as far as I can tell, cryptography relies much more heavily on innovation than on feats of expensive engineering; and innovation is hard to pull off while working by yourself inside of a secret bunker. To be sure, some very successful technologies were developed exactly this way: the Manhattan project, the early space program and especially the Moon landing, etc. However, these were all one-off, heavily focused projects that required an enormous amount of effort.
When I think of the NSA, I don’t think of the Manhattan project; instead, I see a giant quotidian bureaucracy. They do have a ton of money, but they don’t quite have enough of it to hire every single credible crypto researcher in the world—especially since many of them probably wouldn’t work for the NSA at any price unless their families’ lives were on the line. So, the NSA can’t quite pull off the “community in a bottle” trick, which they’d need to stay one step ahead of all those Siberians.
Yes and I fully agree with you. I am just being pedantic about this point:
I agree with this philosophy, but my argument is that the following is evidence we do not have:
Since I have little confidence that, if the NSA had advanced tech, Snowden would have disclosed it; the absence of this evidence should be treated as quite weak evidence of absence and therefore I wouldn’t update my belief about the NSA’s supposed advanced technical knowledge based on Snowden.
I agree that it has a low probability for the other reasons you say, though. (And also that people who think setting other peoples’ mousetraps on fire is a legitimate tactic might not simultaneously be passionate about designing the perfect mousetrap.)
Sorry for not being clear about the argument I was making.