[149168] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
[Cryptography] Timing of cyberattacks -- is this a joke?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephan Neuhaus)
Tue Jan 21 13:39:19 2014
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:32:18 +0100
From: Stephan Neuhaus <stephan.neuhaus@tik.ee.ethz.ch>
To: Cryptography List <cryptography@metzdowd.com>
Errors-To: cryptography-bounces+crypto.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@metzdowd.com
This paper http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/01/08/1322638111 has
been making some waves; I've heard it discussed in several podcasts to
which I subscribe.
Mathematically, the paper is not very difficult, and the treatment more
than superficial (using tables to find the optimum of a smooth function
of two variables), and some assumptions questionable (constant payoff
discount rate), but from a practical perspective, it's useless because
none of the parameters that go into the equations can be estimated
robustly. (As far as I could see, there's also no discussion of how
sensitive the equations are to errors in the parameter estimates.)
So my question is: is this paper just an elaborate hoax or is this to be
taken seriously? To be honest, it has the feel of the Sokal paper, just
without the latter's excellent exploitation of jargon. (Or perhaps I'm
just too blind to see it.)
Fun,
Stephan
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