phc-discussions - Re: [PHC] Discuss the contest in the media?

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Message-ID: <20140712093913.GA15023@openwall.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 13:39:13 +0400
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: discussions@...sword-hashing.net
Subject: Re: [PHC] Discuss the contest in the media?

On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 12:07:22AM -0400, Justin Cappos wrote:
> Hmm.   I wonder if I start to mention other candidates in an interview if
> that is going to irritate any creator whose entry is not mentioned.   I
> tend to stay away from picking favorites for these reasons...

Right.  I think in contexts like this ("in the media") it's OK to
mention one's own PHC candidate or/and all PHC candidates (but this is
too many, although JP manages to mention them all in one talk), but
mentioning specific other PHC candidates isn't so great at this time
unless you need to do so to explain things better.  I did mention Catena
in my talk on yescrypt, but that was in context of similar features
between the two, not to specifically highlight Catena vs. others.

> The question I asked is if media attention about the contest is welcome...
>   However, maybe it would be easier to ask: does anyone feel the contest
> should not be mentioned?

I think it's good to mention the competition (not contest!) to the media.

Not everyone in the PHC panel agrees, but to me there's very important
distinction between contest (between people) and competition (between
PHC submissions).  In my work on yescrypt, I prioritized making a better
(in my opinion, not necessarily PHC panel's) and non-redundant
submission over improving yescrypt's chances to win.  I think most (or
maybe all) other PHC submission authors did the same.  There's indeed
correlation between "a better and non-redundant submission" and "better
chances to win", but these are not exactly the same.

Alexander